Family Ties
by rainbow.severus
Summary: Ram finds and gets to know his twin brother, meanwhile they work together to try to find and catch a mole in the Rangeman organization. This is not a Babe, Cupcake, nor Tart story. Ranger and Steph are briefly mentioned. This story centers around the brothers getting to know each other by working together to bring down a mole in the Rangeman organization. Rated M for language.
1. Prologue

**Ram POV**

My name is Jason Sebastian Ramsey but the guys I worked with and those I served in the Army with all called me Ram for short. When I left the Army as a First Lieutenant after eight years and obtained the title of "one of the best snipers" in Army history with a perfect "one-shot kill rate", I was offered a job at a private security company in Trenton, NJ. The owner and CEO was my commanding officer for several missions. Since I decided not to renew my contract with the Army and would only do special and black ops missions when the money was right, I agreed to join his staff.

Work had been going smoothly, nobody had problems with skips or the like, although it had been dark and gray in the building for the past year. The light that usually shone over all of us faded away when she left that night. Steph had a huge blowout with the boss, Ranger, and left for parts unknown. We later found out that she crammed everything she owned, furry little rat included, into her car and headed west; finally settling in a small town in the middle of Iowa. Ranger high-tailed it to Miami out of frustration, although he claimed it was to clear his head. I personally thought he was just scared or a coward since he knew we would all kick his ass on the mats for driving our closest friend and sister away. Ranger was still in Florida and he could stay there for all I cared.

Tank had taken over Rangeman Trenton. His first task was to move both Bobby and Lester up to the second in command positions. I guessed he didn't want to have to decide and hurt one or the others' feelings, not that I blamed him. I wouldn't want that either. That would never happen by the way, neither of them thought that selfishly. His second task was to appoint Hal to the core team. I must admit, he deserved the spot. He busted his ass around here.

The shooting range was still my domain. It was where I was in charge. Besides keeping it stocked and cleaned, I had other duties including the quarterly assessments of veteran employee's skill levels; correcting any bad habits they had developed over the last three months with their sidearm; and the training of new recruits in firearms. At times the newbies were more trouble than they were worth.

The range was where I was at the moment thinking about everything and wanting desperately to clear my head. The sound of gunfire and the smell of smoke as the shells discharged, usually grounded and soothed me, today was no different.

I moved my train of thought from the ass Ranger and Bomber to more pleasant topics. To this day we still don't know what they had argued about, the only one we missed was Steph.

After taking a bullet to my side, several months ago, I met a spectacular woman. She was the ER nurse who took care of me, that was before Bobby, our company medic, arrived on the scene and took over. I remembered making it a point to check out her name tag, Alexis it read. It took me several tries but I finally got her to agree to go out with me; after pleading and promising to never get shot again. We have been dating for close to four months now and I couldn't be happier. Her long flowing auburn mane tickled my nose when I buried my face in it and inhaled the scents of cherry blossom, peach, and white jasmine which was uniquely her.

Those thoughts of her seemed to take the edge off of my anger and allowed me to calm down further, not to mention it made my cargos fit tighter. I shot my way through three more clips, noting the tight grouping of holes in patterns. At one point I found myself doing one of Steph's trademark patterns, after which, I laughed for a minute. Then I started sweeping up the ton of spent shell casings from the floor.

I looked down at my watch as I exited the range. I was surprised that I had been down here nearly three hours. It shouldn't have shocked me, I had practiced for a while in addition to stocking all the new ammo that had come in earlier this morning, plus making sure all the test weapons were in good working condition.

It was well past lunch time, so I headed up the stairs to the break room. Hopefully the guys had left some of Ella's delicious food for my grumbling stomach. That would have made Steph laugh, someone else's stomach having a 'voice'. Thankfully, a couple of turkey wraps were left.

While I ate lunch Les and Bobby came into the break room. They both started bitching because all the sandwiches and wraps were gone, I was glad I got there when I did. I had to shake my head as I listened to them argue about where to go to grab a sandwich. It was then I realized Les was a whinny-ass. Luckily for him, women seemed to love that trait in him.

They griped and complained their way out of the break room, seemingly to go get their own lunch. I wondered where they finally decided to go. I thought I heard Les mumble something about Pino's, but I couldn't be certain.

Just as I swallowed the last bite of my second turkey wrap my phone went off. I glanced at the screen, seeing it was Tank. I picked up immediately.

"Ramsey."

"I need you in my office now," Tank stated. "I have a new employee for you to meet and train."

"Be there in two."

I had barely gotten the words out of my mouth before the click of his disconnect sounded in my ear.

Striding over to the trash can, I deposited my garbage. I made my way down the hall and toward Tank's domain. I was nervous, but excited as well to meet our newest addition. I just hoped he had at least a basic knowledge of weapons and how to handle them.

The sharp rap of my knuckles on Tank's closed office door stung for a bit, while I waited for permission to go in. Tank's gruff "enter" filtered through the thick oak. After which, I twisted the handle and opened the door.

I walked into Tank's office to meet the new employee and stopped dead in my tracks, my blank face slipped and my jaw slack. My life was about to be changed forever. ########

A/N: Well that's the teaser prologue for my newest story. What do you all think? Please leave me a review and let me know if you are interested in seeing more. The whole story is written and I will be posting two or three times a week if there is an interest in the story. For those of you who were hoping to see my next 'hot' series story, I'm sorry. This idea just completely took over my muse and I had to get it out. Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for reviewing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rain (Jackie)


	2. Ranger and Steph Explained

**Ram POV**

 **I _walked into Tank's office to meet the new employee and stopped dead in my tracks, my blank face slipped and my jaw slack. My life was about to be changed forever._**

There were two men sitting in the visitor's chairs opposite Tank's desk. Both heads turned towards me when I entered. I knew the look on my face held utter shock and bewilderment because that's exactly what I was feeling.

One of the gentlemen, and I call him that because he was wearing a charcoal gray suit complete with black pin stripped silk tie; smiled gently at me. The other, well he's the one that had my mouth hanging open in awe. It was like looking into a mirror. He had my face, but with subtle differences; like a small scar above his right eyebrow. Which I thought was incredible, since I had a similar scar running above my left. We really were mirror images.

"Ram, step inside and close the door. This needs to be a private conversation," Tank demanded.

That's just what I did, closed the door and took a seat on the only available perch left in Tank's office, a huge leather sofa near the two guests.

"What's going on?" I asked once I was able to school my features again and found my voice.

"These gentlemen are from SHIELD. Agent Coulson here has brought some distressing news to my attention," Tank said while he nodded slightly to indicate the man in the suit. I had heard of SHIELD, any one of us who had done special ops had heard about them. We even teamed up with some of their agents from time to time on certain missions.

"And what news is that sir?"

"SHIELD has been looking for an international arms dealer, the head of the Cortez family to be exact. They have recently learned that the family has planted a mole inside Rangeman, supposedly to keep tabs on those of us who still run missions to close factions like theirs down," Tank finished.

Now I knew what the disturbing news was, we had a mole in the building. The anger running throughout my body was clearly visible to those who knew me well. I remained silent because it didn't look like Tank was quite finished yet. My gut was proven right when he continued to speak.

"They have decided that the best way to take down the Cortez family is to plant an agent undercover to find the mole and to gather intel from him. That is what Agent Barton is here for." Tank nodded to my doppleganger, who remained motionless and impassive in his seat.

"So Agent Barton here is the new recruit I'm supposed to be training? If he works for SHIELD, I'm pretty sure he knows one end of a gun from the other," I smarted off. A sly grin came to rest on Barton's face at my comments. I wondered briefly what was going through his head at the time. That was a truly shit-eating smirk, just like the one I sported from time to time.

"Yes Ramsey," Tank started. "It has to look completely like he's a new employee and that means weapons 'training' along with everything else."

"Yes sir."

"No time like the present to get started," Agent Coulson suggested. "I'm sure you two can find lots of subjects to discuss while you're training." He added with a polite smile.

"Of course," Tank agreed. "Barton has only been working with SHIED for about a year, so it shouldn't be necessary for him to use an alias. He shouldn't be recognized by anyone here. He has mostly been working overseas missions, none here in the U.S. Ram take Barton up to the empty apartment on four before you head to the range." Tank then passed a key card across his desk to Barton.

It wasn't until then that I noticed three large duffle bags on the floor by his chair. We both rose out of our seats. Barton picked up a bag in each hand while I offered to carry the other downstairs for him.

We exited Tank's office and I led him to the stairs so we could drop his gear off in his apartment, with the exception of a rectangular black case that he pulled out of one of his bags. I knew it was a weapon case, but had no idea what type of weapon. It was too short and too wide to be a rifle case. He carried it with him, like he could not be separated from it.

The trek down the single flight of stairs was made in complete silence. I had so many questions swimming around in my mind but I knew I should wait until we were in total privacy to voice my concerns.

After delivering his gear to his temporary living space, Barton and I continued down to the basement shooting range.

As soon as we entered my safe haven, I could no longer hold my tongue. I immediately started the inquisition.

"So you want to tell me why you're wearing my face," I began. He chuckled before answering.

"Who says I'm wearing your face, maybe you're wearing mine."

"Regardless, I want to know what's going on other than your undercover job. I know there is something else up."

"You're right, there is. Your boss, Tank, knows the whole story, as does my boss, Fury and my handler Coulson. Barton is my adoptive parents name. My birth name was Kitsom, according to the adoption papers they showed me," he explained as we selected weapons to play with.

I knew the Ramsey's adopted me when I was less than a week old and my own adoption records revealed that my birth name too was Kitsom. I was floored, I had a twin brother.

"I knew I was adopted, but I had no clue that I had a brother," I told him.

"Well now you know," he replied as he emptied an entire clip into the target at the end of the lane in less than ten seconds. I stared down the row, checking out his grouping. It was flawless, all rounds within a space the size of a quarter. I was duly impressed and I informed him of that fact.

"Nice grouping."

"Thanks and just think, this isn't even the weapon I'm most comfortable with," he jeered.

"What do you mean Barton?"

"Call me Clint, we're brothers after all," he offered while reaching for the black case that he had brought down with him. After opening it, he lifted out what I could tell right away was a collapsible bow. With a flick of his wrist, it snapped open. He reached into the case again and brought out a quiver full of arrows. He expertly slid the quiver over his head to rest on his back.

"Watch and learn Ramsey," he laughed as he deftly drew an arrow from his back, notched it on the string, pulled back and let it fly down the range. The arrow, of course, hit dead center. The next one however, landed just under the first, but so close you could hear the slight squeak when they rubbed together.

"Impressive, and it's Jason. Like you said, we're brothers."

"So, Jason, how about a little friendly competition? You and the weapon of your choice against me and my bow? Winner buys dinner, I'm starving."

"Your on. And fair warning, I can eat ... a lot," I snarked back.

"Whatever," he joked right back to me. "So can I."

The weapon of my choice ended up being my favorite sniper rifle. I was always dead on when I used it. Unfortunately Clint was better. If I'm not mistaken, the last arrow he fired, he did so with his eyes closed!

"Looks like I owe you dinner," I griped playfully to my new found brother.

"Yes you do," Clint answered as he packed his bow and quiver back into their case. "So where's the best places for grub around here." He added.

"Depends, what are you in the mood for?"

"Pizza and a beer?" He suggested.

"Okay. The guys usually go to Shorty's for pizza and beer," I replied when he picked up his weapon case and we headed for the door to the range.

"Shorty's it is then, lead the way."

"You want to take your bow back upstairs or take it with us?"

"Take it back upstairs, don't want to risk it getting stolen out of the truck," he responded, so that's what we did.

We took the elevator back down to the garage and used one of the fleet SUVs for the drive to Shorty's. He understood my need for quiet while I was in my driving zone, so conversation was nil on the way to the restaurant.

When we arrived at Shorty's, we chose an empty table in the rear and I sat with my back to the wall in order to keep everyone and the entrance in my field of vision. Every eye in the place was on us, gazing with undisguised interest; no doubt they were wondering about our identical faces.

The waitress hurried over to take our order and I saw the unmistakable heat in her eyes. I deduced that twins must have been her kink. When she giggled and winked before she took our order I knew I was right.

"What do you like on yours?" I asked Clint.

"I'm not picky, just no mushrooms. I'm allergic."

"You heard the man," I told the waitress. "We'll take one large with everything except mushrooms and a pitcher of beer."

She wrote our order down on her pad then scurried away. After she was gone I started up the conversation. It was time to get to know more about my twin.

"So, where did you learn to shoot a bow and so accurately?"

"My family moved around a lot when I was a kid. We ended up joining a circus when I was nine or so. I got close to the trick shooter, became his understudy. He taught me everything there is to know about shooting. I eventually became better than he was."

"A circus, that sounds interesting," I commented.

"It was fun while it lasted and I was glad we decided to join up. I learned marksman skills there just as good as the military could have taught me."

"So you never joined the military then?"

"No," he began with a sad look on his face. "Something happened when I was a teen. I found out the trick shooter and another carnie were planning on stealing from the take one night and confronted them about it. They repaid my interference by beating me half to death and leaving me to die. When I got out of the hospital after I healed, I left the circus and got by on my own for several years. Then a couple of years ago Coulson found me where I finally settled in Iowa. I was working as a bouncer in a strip club. We talked and he told me he had seen me perform as a trick shooter and that he saw potential in my skills, then offered me a job with SHIELD. I took it. What about you? You were an Army ranger, right?"

"Yea eight years, including sniper training. I also did special ops when they needed my skill set and when the money was right," I informed him, then asked. "Why did they ask you to do this undercover gig? You seem to be more of an assassin to me than you do an infiltrator."

"They didn't offer me the job, I volunteered for the assignment when I heard about it. I wanted the chance to get to know my brother better."

"I'm glad you did. Now that I know you exist, I want to do that too. I want to know what it's like to have a sibling since I'm an only child and now you're here giving me that chance."

It was a good thing the food arrived then. Our little chat was becoming too emotional and I was in danger of losing my reputation as a bad ass that I worked so hard all these years to achieve. We got quiet for a while as we dug into the pizza and brew.

We had just finished off a second large pizza when I felt my phone buzz on my hip with a text message. Glancing at the readout, I saw it was from Tank, so I didn't hesitate to open it and read.

 _All staff meeting. Conference room Three in twenty. -T_

It looked like Clint and I would have to continue our 'getting to know my brother better' conversation later. He looked up at me expectantly before he spoke.

"Bad news?"

"No not really," I explained. "Tank just called a mandatory all staff meeting. Kinda strange at this time of the evening. It must be important though. Tank never does anything without a damn good reason."

"That include me?"

"You're 'staff' aren't you," I grinned back as I dropped a couple of hundreds down on the table to cover our bill and the tip.

"Smart ass," I heard him quip as we walked back out to the parking lot and climbed back into the SUV. The ride back to Haywood took almost fifteen minutes, traffic was a little clogged up because of an accident.

We pulled into the garage with minutes to spare, so we rushed up the stairs to the fifth floor. I was not surprised to hear the mumbles coming from all directions around us as we made our way down the hall. _'What the fuck?' 'Who is that?' And 'Holy Shit, there's two of 'em!'_ Those were the most prevalent comments hitting my ears; no doubt Clint heard them too, but when I peeked over to see his reaction, he just shrugged nonchalantly.

Never pausing our stride, we entered the conference room. The curious glances followed us the entire way. We sat down in adjacent chairs and calmly waited for Tank's arrival to begin this unusual meeting. The quiet murmurs drifted through the room as our coworkers openly discussed theories of who Clint could be and what he was doing here.

When Tank marched through the door and barked out "At ease", all talking immediately ceased. He dropped himself down in the chair at the head of the table. After taking a deep breath, he started to fill us in on why we were called in at such a weird hour.

"I know you're all wondering why I called this meeting. Listen up, without interrupting," he threw a pointed look at Santos when he said the last part. Then he continued. "And everything will become clear. First up, I would like to introduce you all to the newest member of our team, Clint Barton. Yes, I know he looks like Ram and yes, he is Ram's brother. Yes, I knew about that when I hired him, but no, Ram didn't know he had a brother until after I introduced them earlier today. And no, you may not harass them with idiotic questions to fuel your geriatric style gossip mill. Understood?"

"Yes sir," was uttered throughout the room.

"Now secondly, I know you're all wondering why Steph left us and just exactly what she and Ranger argued about before she left," Tank professed. All eyes took on a look of extreme interest, every man in the room had wondered about that for nearly a year and were dying to hear the explanation. "It all started last year when Santos was shot while on a FTA take down with her. As you all know, the bullet nicked his heart and he nearly died from his injuries. That was the wake up call that Ranger needed. He was afraid that one of us would end up being killed because of her neglect. It pissed him off immensely, being that Santos is his cousin and family. He ended up firing her as a result."

"What?!" Les screamed as he bolted up out of his seat.

"Santos, stand down!" Tank bellowed right back. Les pouted, but plopped back down in his chair again, none the less. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, that was the last straw for Ranger. He was fed up. He could no longer sit back and watch Steph put us all in danger just because she refused to train to make her job easier. You all know how she was, she never thought anything was her fault and sometimes even I felt like she didn't truly have our backs when we helped her bring in a skip and that's dangerous in our line of work. But anyway, harsh words were exchanged. Ranger fired her and forbade her to come to us for help anymore. That just pissed her off even more. She accused him of never really caring about her, was adamant that it wasn't her fault that Les got hurt, and vowed he would never have to worry about her ever again as she huffed her way out of his office. I was sorely disappointed in her, she was acting childish. Then when she fled the city in the middle of the night, in essence abandoning her family and all of her friends, including us, that only proved that I was right about her behavior being immature." Tank sighed with a sad look on his face when he finished his story.

I found myself disappointed in her reaction as well. How could she just leave and toss us aside after all we had done for her? Each and every one of us had been compromised while working with her in some kind of way. We had been sat on and squashed by her sometimes partner, gotten cut or stabbed, taken bullets, broken bones, and even stunned by her; and all for her and it seemed like she didn't care. Ranger was right, she would have gotten one of us killed before she finally woke up and saw her mistakes. But by then it would have been too late, at least for one of us. Tank spoke again and drew me out of my musings.

"That's it. I thought y'all deserved to know the entire story. Cal, Manny, go relieve Ace and Skull on the monitors. Dismissed."

With that permission, everyone left the conference room to go their separate ways. We all had a ton of thinking to do. I knew every man felt similar to me and it would take time to get over Steph's betrayal and abandonment. I had no doubt in my mind that we would survive this, we had to. After all, survival is what we were all trained for ... wasn't it? #############


	3. The Merry Men Reactions

**A/N:** After this chapter, Ranger and Steph will no longer be in this story. This story is about the twins getting to know each other as they try to catch a mole inside Rangeman. Please keep the nasty reviews to yourself and as always if you don't like something in particular about a story, don't read it! Simple as that.

 **LPOV (Lester)**

Well that was a memorable meeting. It made me think about all we have been through with Beautiful. Tank brought up some damn fine points too. I had always wanted her to get some kind of training to lessen the chance of one of us, or her, getting severely hurt while we were out with her. It would also help her to better watch our backs. It was like she always depended on us to take care of her, when partners were supposed to watch out for each other.

My getting shot and nearly killed should have been the slap to the face she needed to get her head straight and finally agree to get that training. But that was not what happened. She acted like she always did, forever in denial. Maybe one day I would be able to forgive her abandonment, but not anytime soon.

I made my way down to the gym to work out some of this frustration I was feeling. Perhaps if I kicked the shit out of a punching bag for a couple of hours, I too, would be able to park my mind in denial land.

As I pummeled said bag into oblivion, the thoughts of betrayal shifted to the back of my mind and I started to think on the other point of the meeting, the new guy. It was not a big deal for there to be a new guy, we had new hires constantly coming in and going out. The shock was the fact that he was Ram's brother and his twin by the looks of it.

That made made me think of the reason he was here; the mole. Being members of the core team meant that Bobby, Hal, and I all knew the reason Barton was here and who he worked for. My fists flew once again, throwing shot after shot against the bag. We had a spy in the building. My jaw began to tick as the anger grew. We would see that he was taken down, probably after a dose of Rangeman justice.

 **Bobby POV**

The meeting, wow, that one threw us all for a loop. Bomber, the new guy, the mole; they all were taking over my brain at the moment and that was not good. As the company medic, my mind had to be sharp and ready at a moment's notice. It could be a matter of life or death and I could not afford to be distracted.

Steph, I couldn't even begin to count the times I had patched her up. Each and every time though, had been a result of her not being aware of what was going on around her, or lack of training; not being able to take care of herself. She had not gotten me injured, but I had taken care of injuries that the other guys had received as a result of her negligence. The wound from her betrayal though, that would take a longer time to heal. Still, I hoped where ever she was that she was safe and happy.

The new guy, Barton, I knew why he was here, also who he was and about his other job. We never had to bring in someone for an undercover op like this before. But I had to admit, his help would be appreciated. Maybe it would take our minds off of her and allow them to be where they were needed; on the infiltrator. I had no clue about his identity, but he would pay. That I was absolutely sure of.

 **Hal POV**

My head was beginning to ache with all of the information floating around inside of it. There was so much to think about. First was Steph, the one person we never thought would just up and leave us. Sure, she put us in unnecessary danger with her 'fly by the seat of my pants' attitude; but we all cared for her, so we put up with it. Maybe that was the wrong thing to do, maybe we should have insisted that she get the training she needed to make her job and ours easier, but we were too blinded by the light in her eyes to see it.

She had gotten most of us injured in one way or another over the years due to her lack of training. Some of the guys still bore the scars of the incidents. Hell, she even stunned me with my own stun gun for goodness sake!

Since I joined the core team, I had become privy to things that would not have been my knowledge before. For instance I knew who Barton was, who he _really_ was, besides obviously being Ram's twin. I had done a couple of missions side by side with SHIELD in the past. Their agents were some of the best in the world, so I had no doubts that Barton would be able to weed out our mole.

 **Cal POV**

Monitor duty sucked. It always had. This time though, I had important stuff running through my mind from that meeting. My angel turned out to have a bit of a demonic side. Well, maybe it was more of a childish immature streak, but we all knew that about it. The list of injuries we were treated for because of her was long. I myself had gotten a concussion once while on 'Bombshell Bodyguard Duty' during the whole Slayer fiasco. Perhaps that was more my fault really, I was the one to pass out and hit my head on the floor after her sister's water broke on me.

What was really bothering me the most was the mole inside of Rangeman. That pissed me off more than anything could. We ran a tight ship and the idea that one of our coworkers was tainted, that was unacceptable. We would work together to figure out this mystery and in the end make him pay.

I glanced over to Manny to see if I could get some idea of his thoughts. His blank face was unreadable. Oh well, I was being paid to watch these monitors anyway, not goof off.

 **Manny POV**

Dios Wifey, what have you done to us? Were you really that thick headed to not see that just agreeing to train some with us would have saved us all the heartache of you abandoning us. You left me without even the courtesy of a divorce decree. I grinned internally at that little joke. But really, I had taken a bullet to the chest for her. Technically it was in my vest, but still. Now I added heartbreak to that.

Thoughts of the other betrayal hit me then. We had a bad seed planted here in the building. That fact, I knew, had us all on edge. Corrupting Rangeman was a crime of the highest order and the punishment that would be dished out would be severe. I could hardly wait.

 **Woody POV**

My southern gentleman upbringing would make it difficult at best to stay angry at Steph for too long. In truth, I had almost completely forgiven her already. She was my 'darlin', and the only woman besides my family that I had ever given a nickname. Oh, don't get me wrong, I was pissed. Her betrayal hurt more than most, but still I would forgive and forget, eventually.

The reason Steph had shifted to the back of my mind temporarily was this nasty business with the betrayer of the worst kind in our midst, the mole. We had never had someone be stupid enough to attempt to infiltrate the Rangeman organization. It just wasn't done. We were all hand picked by Ranger, the best of the best, to be on his elite team. We would ultimately figure out who was behind these illegal activities and he would pay, first with some of our own brand of justice. Maybe we would allow him to serve actual penitentiary time, we'll see.

 **Mole POV**

Well shit, this sucked. Oh, I didn't mean the fact that Stephanie, that stupid bitch, left. Actually I breathed a sigh of relief about that and said 'good riddance' to her brand of trouble. Now maybe Bobby would have less work to do patching us up because of her infantile decisions, which always caused one of us to get hurt in some way, shape, or form. No, I definitely would not be crying any tears because of her absence from my life.

First, I should give some history about myself. I grew up in Cuba, the middle son of the head of the Cortez gun cartel. My older brother, Alejandro, was named as our father's successor just before my eighteenth birthday. Seeing as I would not be needed in country, I decided to move to the U.S. to be of better use gathering information for the family. Shortly after my twenty-first birthday I received a new mission from my brother. I was to infiltrate the U.S. Army in order to take out a group of elite men who were causing havoc with our plans to take control of the gun running business in the eastern U.S.

For this assignment, I changed my last name and had an entire false background made up, in case anyone tried to do a background check on me.

After spending four years in the Army, I had gathered quite a bit of intelligence about said group, but they were unfortunately very hard to kill. It seemed they all worked together at a security company in New Jersey when not running missions for the Army, taking down families such as my own. Their leader offered me a job with them and I thought there was no better way to continue to gather information on him and his team. My brother agreed that this was an excellent idea also. So here I was, working for Rangeman, undercover in a most evil way.

I have worked with these guys for just over a year now. I knew they each excelled at their particular specialty. Only one of them really had me worried. If anyone could figure out it was me that was a member of the Cortez family, it was him. Then again, he was different from the rest. They would be using military logic to try to solve the puzzle, but not him. He scared the shit out of me! Hell, he scared all of us. All I could do now was continue to gather intel while I sat back, performed my job as usual, and hope that I could get done here before they found me out.

Yea, he was the only one that truly frightened me. The rest, well just let them try to catch me. Ha! I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that none of my fellow coworkers could discover me. And if they thought they could, well, we would see in the end.

 **Clint POV**

Well, this job was going to prove to be at the very least, interesting. These guys were known for working well together and the idea of a mole inside their highly secure building had every one of them up in arms and ready to kick ass. This assignment should end up being a milk run. Which was great, that would give me more quality time for getting to know my brother. That was the main reason for my begging Fury to give me this chance after all.

Generally speaking, I was not known around SHIELD for my trusting nature. Most of my fellow agents knew little to nothing about me or my past. They would all be shocked to discover that I had so easily shared part of my past with Jason. But the second we met, I had a gut feeling that I could trust him and would always be able to do so. I figured it was part of our twin bond. Yet somehow I still felt that it was incomplete, that there was something missing.

Jason forced my attention to turn to him and away from my inner dialogue when he spoke.

"There you are, bro. I've been looking all over for you," he sounded relieved.

"So, looks like you found me. What's up?"

"Some of the guys are about to start up a poker game. They asked if we wanted to join in . It's usually a pretty good time, depending on who all shows up," he filled me in.

"Who's planning on being there?" I wondered.

"So far Les, Bobby, Woody, Vince, Hal, and maybe Cal. We'll have to use one of the conference rooms though. We all won't fit in one of the apartments and the tables are bigger there too," he explained.

"It's up to you. Do you want to play?"

"Yea, I've played with them before and had a blast. But I know it will be even better with you there," he grinned.

"Sure, sounds fun, besides it will be a good way to get to know the fellas."

"Smart thinking," he complimented. "They're starting soon. We better head on down the hall if we want to join in."

We quickly made our way to the smallest conference room. Even though it was the smallest, it would still be well past large enough to suit our purposes. It had been a while since I played a nice friendly game of cards. The games that Stark held usually ended with him passed out drunk before we had the chance to clean him out of any significant amount of his money, but since Tony Stark, AKA 'Iron Man' was a billionaire and a genius, him losing money was probably not going to happen. And an inebriated, to the point of passing out, Tony Stark was never a fun thing to witness. Although that seemed to be the only way to get him to shut up and a quiet Stark was a tolerable Stark.

When we entered the conference room, I saw that all of the guys were there and everything seemed to be set up and ready to go, including a ton of food and a large cooler full of cold beers. This promised to be a fun game.

Jason and I took our seats and the game was on. The whole time the guys were throwing questions out left and right and at the same time, telling me about themselves as well. Les seemed the most curious, but they all gave details of their lives freely and openly. It felt like a family, one I thought I was lucky to have a chance to be a part of.

As the next hand was being dealt, Vince asked his first question. "So Barton, what branch did you do your time in?"

"No special training here, just a regular Army grunt," I replied smoothly.

"Just like Ram then, that's cool man," Les added.

"Yea, except Jason here was recruited to be a special ops sniper, I never was. My superiors weren't too fond of my condescending attitude," I summed up.

We played out the hand with Hal winning. He was surprisingly shrewd when it came to poker, but they all, me included, had mastered the blank poker face.

The next hand went to Les and he just had to gloat about it.

"Read 'em and weep gents. Three ladies," he sighed deeply before continuing. "A favorite fantasy of mine by the way."

"You're such a man whore," Bobby teased.

I chuckled softly at that while I thought to myself, 'A man after my own heart. We have _got_ to hang out!' But then I laughed out loud at Les' response.

"Don't hate the playa, hate the game!" That had everyone at the table rolling with laughter. The laughter only got louder when Bobby reached over and smacked Les on the back of his head while muttering, "You're still a slut."

To which Les remarked, "Well, someone has to keep Trojan in business." Bobby just shook his head, I guessed he couldn't top that. But I could.

"Just how many rubber trees have died in an effort to keep you in prophylactics, forty five, fifty thousand?"

"That sounds about right," Les beamed with pride.

Woody put his two cents worth in, "You must own like half of Trojan's stock by now."

By now, poor Hal was beet red from his forehead, all the way down to well past where we could see above the neck of his shirt.

These guys were a riot. This was going to be the most fun I had ever had on a mission. I knew just by these couple of hours I spent playing cards with them, that I was going to fit right in around here.

After five or so more hands, it was nearing midnight, so we all wrapped it up for the evening and headed to our apartments. With the exception of Hal and Cal. They left for monitor duty a few minutes before us, both grumbling about late night monitor duty being worse than watching paint dry and better than a sleeping pill. I didn't like the sound of that and I knew I would find out soon enough just how bad it could be. I could hardly contain my excitement … not!

Jason and I trudged down the single flight of stairs to the fourth floor and our apartments. We ambled down the hall and stopped in front of our doors. After we dug our key cards out and opened our doors, we separated until morning. Jason spoke first, "Night bro."

"Night Jase," I answered before closing the door behind me and re-locking it.

I picked up two of the bags still sitting on the floor by the sofa and carried them down the hallway to the bedroom. The other bag contained my weaponry, all but my bow case, it was already hidden in the living room. All of my SHIELD files on the employees of Rangeman Inc. were also in my weapons bag.

A shower was the next order of business so I grabbed a clean pair of shorts to sleep in, then dumped the two duffles in front of the closet. Unpacking could wait until tomorrow.

The hot shower relaxed me, so I knew sleep would come easily. Today was eventful, all be it fun by the end of it. My eyes were drooping before my head even hit the pillow. I closed my eyes to rest up wondering what tomorrow would bring. #################

A/N : From here on and in all future chapters when Jason (Ram) and Clint are alone or when Clint is thinking he will call Jason – Jase. So for all of you JE fans, Ram is Jase and Jase is Ram. But when other Rangemen are around Clint will call him Ram. Happy reading. I hope you are enjoying this story so far. Feel free to leave me reviews and comments. They feed my muse. Rain …... Jackie :-)


	4. Surveillance and Monitor Training

**Clint POV**

I groaned when the loud beeping noise brought me out of a rather steamy dream. The tent in my shorts told me that I need to get laid, and soon. Stretching after my feet hit the floor, I dragged my still groggy body to the bathroom to shower and shave for the day.

Tank had emailed me a 'training schedule' to keep up appearances with the non-core team staff members. Today was to be my first official day as a Rangeman employee. My shower was quick and efficient, as always. Now I had to find some coffee. I could never function properly without my daily morning dose of caffeine to pry my eyes open.

At least I didn't have to worry about what I was going to wear, uniforms were awesome. I threw on my standard Rangeman cargos and collared shirt, then laced up my boots, locking my apartment door behind me as I headed next door to my brother's.

The look on his face was comical as he looked me in the eyes and stated, "Wake up on the wrong side of the bed, bro?"

"Fuck you Jase! Coffee?" I asked, okay so I more growled that sentence out.

"Okayyyyyyy … I see you can't put one boot in front of the other without coffee in the mornings. Next time I'll hand you a cup before I try talking to you," he recognized. I only grunted in return as we headed up to the fifth floor, where I hoped the rest of the guys had left me some of my morning wake-up call in a mug.

"You're in luck, Ella makes the best coffee," he had the nerve to try to speak to me again. I just glared at him with indignant disgust.

The few guys that were in the break room already took no time in getting out of my way once they saw the lovely mood I was in. I made a bee line for Ella's industrial sized coffee carafe and took all of five seconds to fill up one of the nearby mugs. The first sip was heavenly, Jase was right, this was some good stuff. After I drank my first mug full, I turned to see Jase and the others waiting patiently to see if they would have to evacuate the room. The soft chuckle that escaped my mouth surprised them all, including Jase.

"Grumpy bear has morphed into Cheerful bear now," Jase teased.

"Don't make me hurt you in front of your friends Ramsey," I taunted back.

Our banter was met with chuckles and out right laughter from some. Yea, I felt better after having at least one cup of coffee in me, I would be even better after this second cup was gone.

"What's the plan for today?" I asked Jase as I looked over to him.

"Tank has me scheduled to train you on monitor duty from 1000 to 1400 hours. We'll be relieving Binkie and Woody. You'll have to go see Tank to see what the rest of your day will look like."

"He told me that he would be starting my training today. I wasn't on the regular schedule that he posted for today, but I would be on it beginning tomorrow."

"Well, it's only 0800 now. Why don't we go to his office and ask him what else you'll be training on today?" he suggested.

A nod while humming slightly was my only response before I followed him out the break room doorway and down the hall to Tank's office. His gruff "enter" sounded soon after our knock on the office door.

When we walked in he looked up from his paperwork, the relief on his face evident. "What do you need gentlemen?" He wondered aloud.

"I wanted to know what you have planned for me for the rest of the day. Ram said he would be training me on the monitors from 1000 to 1400, but he didn't know what else was on the agenda for today."

"All you have scheduled for today is the monitor shift with Ram and a surveillance shift tonight from 1900 to 2200 hours with Hal and Cal. I'll put you on the regular schedule tomorrow," was Tank's response.

"Okay, sounds good," I agreed. As we turned to leave Tank questioned.

"Oh, and Barton, I trust you will be keeping me updated on any information you may learn about our little problem?"

"Of course," I assured him and after his terse nod for an answer, we left him to tackle his paperwork once more.

After the morning meeting, we went to relieve Binkie and Woody on the monitors. Jase had already warned me that this was the most boring job here

which is why it was often used as punishment, that and mat time against one or more core team members. I was hoping it was going to be like watching TV. What? A guy could wish, right?

Woody and Binkie must have been eager to leave with the way they shot out of their chairs when we arrived. Now I really feared this would become my least favorite part of my new 'job'.

Jase only gloated in my face, proving he and I had a special 'twin ESP' when he remarked, "Yea. This is gonna suck, big time!"

I could only groan as I took my seat beside him. Next came the educational part of the job. Jase began, "The commercial and residential accounts who have cameras installed as part of their security package, knows the feed goes to us here. When an alarm goes off, we send someone out to check it and fix the problem. Sometimes we catch the problem before the alarm is raised, such as seeing a suspicious person loitering around an area of the business that they're not supposed to be at, or we may catch a thieving employee in the act. But that still doesn't change the fact that sitting here, staring at these screens can put even the toughest of us to sleep. That's why we never put anyone on monitor duty for more than three or four hours," he finished with a smile.

"Yea, I can tell this is gonna be loads of fun," I complained.

"But you have me here to entertain you, so it won't be so bad this time," he joked.

"It will make me want to smack you on the head is more like it," I shot back.

"Save the smacking and ass kicking for the mats bro, I'm pretty sure you'll get some time there too with your smart ass attitude. You and Santos have that in common too."

I shrugged, I could only agree with that assessment, but I could also hold my own in hand to hand combat so I wasn't worried in the least about that.

"So how is this surveillance shift going to go? What's it about?"

"It's just like it sounds," Jase started. "You sit and watch a skip's known hangouts, like home, work, or a bar to learn his movements and when the best time to pick him up would be."

"Sounds monotonous," I groused. "So when do we get to have fun on the job?"

"That comes with the actual skip pick up. We love it when they try to fight back or flee," he looked excited about the thought of going after a skip.

I believed that would soon become my favorite thing to do also. I loved the battle aspect of being with SHIELD, even though most of my jobs there were as a long distance assassin. I still had those few times that I was able to use my hand to hand skills. I was dangerous in an all around way, no matter what.

The rest of our short shift passed by rather quickly. We talked about everything under the sun. Before I knew it, our time was up and Les and Vince were ready to pull their time staring at the screens.

It was just shortly after 1400 when we reached the break room. Our shift on the monitors had left us missing lunch. Luckily today there were sandwiches left, even though I knew it was Ella's job to keep the break room well stocked. After we each grabbed something to eat, Jase spoke.

"So what do you want to do between now and your surveillance shift with Hal and Cal?"

I took a bite of my ham and Swiss sandwich before answering, "Don't know really, what do you suggest? Range?"

"That's a damn fine idea. Another competition?"

"What? You didn't learn your lesson the first time? I'm the best shot in the world … and Asgard. You will never beat me brother," I bragged.

"So I like getting my ass kicked by the best. It keeps my skills sharp," he laughed. "By the way, what's Asgard?" He added.

"It's the realm, or planet Thor is from," I informed him.

"Oh, okay. So what's it like working with all those heroes?"

"I haven't really worked with any of them yet. I still mostly do missions with other SHIELD operatives," I looked around to make sure no one could overhear our conversation.

Jase must have noticed how uncomfortable I was because the rest of our lunch was met with silence. He waited until we were alone in the gun range before speaking again.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have talked about the others you work with when anyone could overhear us. It was a stupid mistake to make."

"It's alright, I don't think anyone heard us. So you want to shoot or what?" I taunted.

"Stop flapping your jaws and bring it Hawkass!"

We both laughed out loud at that. Only he and the core team knew my code name at SHIELD was 'Hawkeye'. We shot the shit, and a few rounds of ammunition for an hour and a half, then got set up for another round of brotherly competition. I wiped the floor with him, of course. As we were sweeping up the spent shell casings Jase spoke again.

"Looks like I'm buying dinner again." He went on to add, "It's almost time for your surveillance shift, so you better get going. You can meet them both in the garage. I'll talk to you later tonight."

I nodded my understanding and left him to take the elevator down to the garage level. When I got down there, Hal and Cal were waiting by a standard Rangeman SUV, it was hard to miss Cal with his flaming skull tattoo.

"Hey Barton," Hal began. "You ready to head out for your first surveillance training shift?"

"Looking forward to it," I said with a slightly sarcastic tone.

We all piled into the SUV with me taking the rear seat. Hal drove for fifteen minutes and finally pulled up across the street from a decrepit apartment building in what appeared to be one of the shadier sides of town. I thought to myself, 'Damn, what I would give for my bow right about now.' After I cracked my window a bit, I started the conversation.

"So, who are we watching tonight?" Hal answered my inquiry.

"Josh Sterling, twenty-nine years old, FTA for his fourth DUI offense. His car was impounded with this last arrest, so he hoofs it around the neighborhood, unless he is with his girlfriend, then she drives. The apartment building across the road is his current address. We're just keeping our eye out for him and taking note of comings and goings to figure out where and when is the best time and place to nab him."

"Easy job, but it can get monotonous," Cal added.

"Let's learn a scumbag's routine," I suggested. Hal and Cal both chuckled.

The next four hours drug by and I kept shifting my ass to keep it from going to sleep on me. A flash of headlights behind us told us our time was up and our relief had arrived. My ass was thankful for the reprieve.

The trip back to Rangeman was shorter than going out was. I guessed it was because there was less traffic at this time of the night. We all kept our thoughts mainly to ourselves on the drive back. I hardly noticed when Hal pulled back into the garage at Rangeman.

"How did you like your first surveillance shift?" Cal wondered as we walked to the elevator.

"Scintillating," I mused.

That got me a couple more chuckles while the elevator doors opened onto the fourth floor. We were all three done for the night. I knew I would have no trouble getting to sleep tonight.

We went our separate ways down the hall. Hal and Cal to their own apartments and I made my way to Jase's. I wanted to see my brother before I retired for the day. I knocked on his door and waited for his response.

After a muffled shout of "Hold your horses. I'm coming," the door was jerked open by my tired looking brother. His demeanor instantly perked up when he saw it was me.

"Clint, what's up?"

"Just finished my surveillance shift and thought I'd check on you before crashing for the night," I took this opportunity to walk through the open door and close it behind me again.

"I just got in from a date with Alexis and had just laid myself down. She wore me out," he complained, but I could still see the humor in his eyes.

"TMI brother, unless you want to hear detailed accounts of all of my conquests. I could give Santos a run for his money."  
"Pass," he joked. "I hear enough about Santos' dalliances, whether I want to or not. You two should hang out. The ladies of Trenton wouldn't know what hit 'em!"

"Ah, fresh meat," I laughed while adding a mental note to talk to Santos about hitting the town.

Jase laughed too, then added. "So, no one special then? I heard rumors about you and another agent. I'm not naming names though. You probably know who I mean."

"That's all they are … rumors. We've never been an item, or had sex. I was sent to kill her, but I recruited her to SHIELD instead," I informed him. "I prefer to let the most ladies possible experience all of my charms," I preened.

Jase just shook his head at me, "Yea, you and Santos will get along famously."

"I know I'll be off after Friday afternoon. Maybe I'll ask Santos if he wants to troll the bars and clubs with me. I wonder what kind of wing man he is?"

"He's the best, that is unless you both set your sights on the same female, then it could get ugly. Maybe I should tag along to keep you both in check," he offered.

"Whatever you want bro, then you can watch and learn from the master," I crowed.

"I don't need to learn jackass. I have a steady woman, remember," he tried to remind me.

"Yea, yea, I know. I prefer the variety platter myself," I teased.

"I swear, it's feels like they cloned Santos' attitude with my face. At least life with you around won't be boring, bro."

"Happy to bring some much needed excitement to your life," I started. "And with that, I think it's time for you to get your beauty sleep. You so obviously need it." I told him with a sly grin on my face.

"If I need beauty rest, then you do too ass wipe. We're identical twins after all!" Jase insulted back to me.

I chuckled then gave him a one armed manly hug as I mumbled out a weary "good night Jase".

"Night Clint. See you tomorrow," he answered.

Releasing my grip on him, I turned back toward the door. After a slight nod in his general direction, I stepped out and closed the door softly behind me. I waited to hear the lock click into place before I walked the short distance down the hall to my own apartment.

My key card was easy to find in my back pocket so I slid it down the side of the door lock. When I heard the lock snap open, I walked into my domain then made sure the door was locked back again and I was secured.

The shower I took was quick. I was too tired to linger. Just a few scant minutes later, I collapsed into the bed and easily drifted off to sleep. Tomorrow was a fresh day full of possibilities. I still had a mole to catch and with luck, and my skills at reading people, I would have no problem figuring out who was behind the evil doings here at Rangeman.

I went to sleep hoping my dreams would be filled with lovely ladies. I knew there was a cocky smile adorning my lips when I finally got to sleep. I didn't know whether it was visions of gorgeous naked women, or the thought of taking down the mole. Which ever it was, neither stood a chance against me. ###########################


	5. Physical Eval and Dinner With the Guys

**Clint POV**

I woke up at my usual 0430, the military and SHIELD training had ingrained that into my system. The bright red numerals of the digital clock on my bedside table gave a faint glow to the still dark room, letting me know it was my training that had awakened me. I had never been one to have nightmares, even though I had done some pretty shitty things with my time in SHIELD's service.

The bed was too comfortable for me to want to get up, but alas I rolled my tired ass out of it anyway. After a fast shower and shave, I ate a quick breakfast of a protein bar and exited my apartment. I had to get my lazy butt to the gym this morning. Bobby was going to do a physical evaluation to keep up the new hire pretense we had running. I was all to happy to go through with this little farce because I missed the physical training part of the SHIELD program, and besides my old body craved the workout.

The ding of the elevator doors opening brought my attention to lighthearted chuckling coming from inside it; Santos and one of the other guys. Why was I not surprised?

"S'up Barton?" Les asked after his laughter had died down a bit.

"Hey fellas," I started. "More 'Tales of Love and Heartbreak' by Lester Santos?" I grinned while teasing.

"More like the revolving door to the Santos boudoir," his companion regaled; Vince I thought I remembered his name being.

"You're just jealous my dates out number yours four to one," Les bragged while a shit eating grin grew on his face.

"You're such a man whore, Santos," I said adding my own dig to the fray.

That shit eating grin of Les' only doubled in size as he wiggled his eyebrows.

I could only shake my head at their antics, then the door to the elevator opened up again on the second floor and we all strode out and through the glass doors of the gymnasium; looked like they were going to work out too.

We went our separate ways then. Les and Vince headed to the sparring ring, while I made my way to the treadmills for a light jog. I had no idea what Bobby had planned for me, so I didn't want to tire myself out before I even got started with him.

After thirty minutes or so at a walking pace, I sped up the machine to a moderate jog. The readout on the machine said I had jogged a little over three miles when I heard a voice from my right.

"Morning Clint, you ready to get started with your physical evaluation?" Bobby asked with a genuine smile. He was holding a clipboard to keep track of my 'results'.

"Let's get it done," I replied after I slowed the machine back to a walk to cool down some. Two minutes later I followed Bobby to the back corner of the gym where we would have room to work.

"Okay, I'm going to be testing you on several activities including; push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, running, and sparring. I checked out the treadmill you were on and saw that you ran just over three miles in less than twenty minutes. That passes you on that portion, so that's one down. Your sparring test will be the last one we do. It will consist of a five minute match with a mystery opponent. The other three tests will be seeing how many you can do in three minutes time. Any questions?" Bobby wrapped up.

"No sir," I answered.

"Alright then, first up will be push-ups, as many as you can punch out in three minutes. Assume the position," Bobby began. I dropped down to a prone position, face down and elbows bent at the ready.

Bobby looked down to me and poised his thumb over the start button of the stop watch he was holding. "Ready … 3... 2 … 1 … Go!"

Not wanting to show off because I obviously had above average upper arm strength, I set myself up with a decent pace. Just as I was beginning to feel a slight tingling in my biceps and shoulders, Bobby called "Time!"

I rose to my feet again and taunted, "What, I was just getting started good."

Bobby chuckled, then informed me, "Not bad, ninety eight in three minutes."

"Damn, I was shooting for a hundred," I laughed.

"Wise guy," Bobby smarted back. "Short water break before your next test."

Bobby handed me a bottle of water after I nodded. The cool drink felt good going down as I swallowed. A couple of minutes later, Bobby led me to the other side of the gym. I wondered why for a moment, then he spoke.

"Sit-ups are next so we can give your arms a chance to rest. On your back and hook your feet under the balance beam for stability. Again, as many as you can do in three minutes, get ready."

I followed his instructions, laying flat on my back with my knees bent and resting my feet under the balance beam, then folding my arms behind my head into the ready to start position.

"Ready? 3 … 2 … 1 … begin," Bobby called out.

These were a little tougher for me, but still no real hardship, especially when I was humming AC/DC's 'Back in Black' under my breath. Before I knew it three minutes had elapsed and Bobby was once again shouting, "Time! Not bad, ninety two. Good job." Flopping back, I relaxed for a minute. I was feeling a bit of a burn in my abs.

"Next up is the pull-ups. Come on, you're almost done," Bobby declared.

The pull up bar was located near the weight benches. I shuffled my feet along beside the Rangeman medic until we reached it.

"Same as before, as many as you can do in three minutes. Ready?"

I nodded my head and told him I was good to go. His reply was that familiar count down, "3 … 2 … 1 … Go!"

Jumping up, I grasped the bar firmly and began pulling myself up; flexing the muscles in my arms. There was a twinge of strain, it had been a while since I had to do these but I managed to keep up a steady pace. Not nearly soon enough for my liking Bobby finally called out, "Time!"

"What's the count this time?" I inquired to Bobby.

"Seventy six, you're doing great. Time for another water break and a few minutes rest while I let your sparring opponent know we're ready for him."

He pressed a few buttons on his phone and waited for the other person to pick up. "Yo, he's ready for you now. Okay, see you in a few," was the terse conversation before he hung up.

I parked my slightly tired butt down on one of the weight benches while I waited. The opening of the gym doors caught my attention. Glancing up, I was shocked to see who walked in. This was going to be fun!

Tank's form was impressive, not to mention massive. I wondered why Bobby had chosen him to be my sparring test opponent as we both climbed into the ring. This was definitely going to be a challenge, but I could hold my own.

I patiently waited while Tank stretched and warmed up. His broad frame moved with surprising grace and fluidity.

We circled each other for several moments. I don't know if we were trying to intimidate each other or if we were deciding what move to make first. The next thing I saw was Tank's huge fist coming at my face, but my quick reflexes and smaller stature allowed me to dodge it and slip under his beefy arm. This intricate dance of duck and dodge went by rather fast. My last move before I heard Bobby call, "Time," had me once again ducking under Tank's flying fist. But this time I spun around and landed a quick jab to the back of his knee. Had I mentioned before that I was fast and devilishly sneaky to boot? The resounding thud of his body hitting the mat echoed throughout the gym. Immediately following Bobby's halt to the match, I collapsed to the floor beside Tank gasping for breath. That was a hell of a workout!

When my breathing had finally slowed back down to normal I risked speaking again as I addressed Bobby.

"So, what's the verdict doc?"

He chuckled out his reply, "You passed with flying colors Barton. No doubt about it."

I heard congratulations coming from all around me, including Tank's "Good job", said with a stoic face and a slap on the back that pitched me forward a little; I wasn't expecting it.

Our sparring match had drawn a small crowd. I noticed Les and Vince were still here from earlier, along with a few others I recognized; Tank and Bobby, of course, my brother Jase, then Hal and Cal.

Jase clapped me on the back of my shoulder after I stood again, telling me, "Proud of you bro. Not too many men can last long in the ring with Tank and that last move was damn sneaky of you."

"Thanks man," I answered him. "Sometimes you have to be sneaky and fast when you up against a mountain of a man."

The remaining guys, Les, Bobby, Jason, and Hal; all laughed. Then Hal spoke up.

"Hey, we should celebrate with pizza and beer at Shorty's tonight."

I quickly agreed to his plan. Male bonding time was always a good idea, and besides that I needed to get to know my co-workers a little better. This seemed like as good a time as any.

"Hal and I will go let the guys know and see who all wants to join us," Les replied. He and Hal strode out the door moments later, leaving just Bobby, Jase and I.

"I better go put the results of your testing in your file. I also need to get started on scheduling check ups for the guys," Bobby groaned out.

"Sure. See you later man," I told his retreating back. "I need a shower. I'll talk to you when I get done," I told Jase once Bobby was gone.

"Alright, later bro," he said, then he left me to do just that.

 _ **Later that evening** …_

After changing out of my daily Rangeman uniform in favor of some more comfortable clothes; well worn jeans and a midnight blue t-shirt, I made my way down the hall to Jase's apartment. I knocked heavily on the door and waited for him to answer. The door was jerked open with an irritated growl until he saw it was me banging on his door. A slow grin started to cover his face as he greeted me.

"Hey bro, I'm almost ready. Make yourself comfortable for a few minutes while I go get changed." It was then that I realized he was wearing a towel, he must have just gotten out of the shower.

Jase's couch was my temporary perch for the next few minutes. I drank a bottle of water while I waited for him to finish getting dressed and return to the living room. He strolled back into the room and asked me, "Ready to roll?"

I nodded, then we both exited his apartment, with Jase locking the door behind us. We ambled down the hall and entered the elevator headed to the garage. We would be riding together in his truck to Shorty's. After the elevator doors opened on the garage level I wondered aloud.

"So who all is going to this thing and is anyone else riding with us?"

"As far as I know it's us, Les, Bobby, Woody, Vince, Hal, Cal, Manny, Binkie, Junior, Bones and Hector; you haven't met him yet. Zip and Zero have the monitors tonight and Tank said he may drop by later if he gets done with his paperwork in time enough to join us," he explained.

"Cool, I wanted the chance to get to know some of the other guys and this seems like the perfect opportunity," I let him know.

"Good plan," Jase began. "And maybe you can get some clues to who the mole is while you're at it."

"You could be right."

The rest of the trip was made in silence, neither of us speaking, each of us absorbed in our own thoughts. Fairly quickly we were pulling into the parking lot of Shorty's. We climbed out of Jase's truck and made our way inside to join the others.

The noise level was a few decibels short of riot when we entered. It was pretty easy to spot the group of rowdy guys from Rangeman. Some of them were still in their uniforms, but they all were pretty loud, laughing and sharing stories of some sort or other. Les of course was the ring leader, no doubt sharing the details of his latest conquest.

I smirked, thinking to myself that I could probably put his boasts to shame with a few of my own torrid escapades. But then again, I was never really big on bragging about my private affairs. Yes, I was a player, but I didn't see fit to boast about it; unlike Santos, he lived to kiss, or fuck, and tell.

When we reached the two tables they had pulled together, we were greeted enthusiastically by all of the guys. Jase introduced me to everyone I didn't know yet, like Binkie, Junior, Bones, and Hector; damn that dude looked scary as hell!

I mumbled a fast "what's up fellas?" before taking my seat. Hal passed me a pitcher of beer and I poured myself a glass, downing half of it right away before clearing my throat, then I dove right in to the conversation.

"So which was it this time Santos, blonde or redhead?"

"Neither," he answered, grinning. "Brunette with tits out to here," he held his hands out a foot from his chest to accentuate his point.

It was Hal who answered him though, "Man is that all you notice in women? You know, you should be able to hold a civilized and intelligent conversation with a lady. Your grunts and groans don't count."

"I'll look for brains if I'm ever ready to settle down. I'm having too much fun playing the field right now to care," Les huffed.

Hal just rolled his eyes at Les while the rest of us laughed. The party was just getting started. I was too busy shoving pizza down my gullet to talk much at the moment. After I swallowed what I was currently chewing, I voiced my approval of the food.

"This is pretty damn good pizza. Shorty doesn't skimp on the toppings. I've had some that was just awful. But nothing beats my homemade."

"Next party is at your apartment then," Woody responded. "Then we can put your cooking skills to the test."

The rest of the guys nodded, agreeing with Woody's plan. I shocked them all with my reply of, "Sure, just let me know when".

"Nothing beats home cooking," Jase stated. "What's your favorite meal Clint?"

"Anything home made. I'm not really picky when it comes to food. I'll eat most anything you put in front of me. What about the rest of you guys?" I asked the group. Les was first to speak up.

"Anything my abuela makes. She is the best cook ever, Ella is a very close second."

"I'm old fashioned too," Bobby started. "I love anything that my mother made, especially her meatloaf and mashed potatoes."

"Pasta made from scratch is the way to make my stomach content," Vince chimed in looking glassy eyed at the very thought of that Italian delicacy.

"Give me a big old slab of steak, hot off the grill and I'm a happy cowboy," Woody drawled.

"I love Thanksgiving with the roasted turkey and all the trimmings. Holiday time is my favorite time of the year," Hal informed us.

"Give me a huge, greasy hamburger any day," Cal told everyone.

"My abuela in Cuba is the best cook in the world," Manny began with a wistful look in his eyes. "Her ropa vieja and fried sweet plantains is my favorite meal."

"Anything fresh out of the oven. I love dessert," Binkie said with a gleam in his eyes.

"This is my favorite right here, nothing beats a good pizza in my book," Junior supplied.

"I'm with Woody, give me a nice cut of steak, medium rare and I'm good to go," Bones inserted.

Hector was the last to speak up, with Les translating for those who didn't speak Spanish. I understood him perfectly, since I was fluent.

"I'm a traditionalist. I prefer the Spanish standards like Manny. A fresh arroz con pollo has me drooling pretty fast."

I was learning a little more about my coworkers and I was thoroughly enjoying it the whole time. After everyone got their fill of pizza, we continued to chat. Some of their stories had me laughing out loud. I couldn't believe that a huge intimidating dude like Cal would pass out at the sight of someone's water breaking and poor Hal got duped into getting stunned with his own stun gun, amazing.

Hal and Cal left soon after sharing their stories. They had to be on monitors early. The rest of us stayed and enjoyed each others' company until Shorty threatened to throw us out on our ears, after making us clean up the kitchen first. Needless to say we were all soon out the door trying to avoid the manual labor.

During the ride back to Rangeman, Jase's curiosity got the better of him.

"So, did anyone stick out at you?"

"No," I admitted. "None of the guys gave me any hints of deception. And I'm usually pretty good at reading people."

"Well, we really didn't expect the culprit to show himself after only a week. We'll figure it out."

"Yea," I groaned. I would get to the bottom of this, somehow. But right now, I was ready to get my ass into bed. I was exhausted. Tomorrow is another day after all. ####################


	6. Defensive Driving Training

**Clint POV**

Today was another scheduled 'training' session, defensive driving this time. Tank and Woody would be my instructors. This was going to be fun; I had a few tricks up my sleeve. My sneaky side seemed to be wanting to make an appearance again.

I chuckled lightly on my way down to the garage. It was almost time to begin. I could hardly wait to see the looks on Tank's and Woody's faces when they see how well I handle a vehicle.

"Yo, bro, what's on the agenda for the day?" I heard Jase's voice call out from my right.

"Hey Jase," I replied. "I'm about to head out with Tank and Woody for defensive driving."

"Oh, sounds like fun. Have you told Tank about your driving skills yet?"

"Nope," I said with a devilish glint in my eyes.

"Oh shit, Tank is gonna kick your ass," Jase laughed at my probable danger.

"He's welcome to try, but as you saw the other day, I can hold my own little brother. Matter of fact, you care to make a wager on it? I bet I can not only one up Woody, the self proclaimed 'Engine Master' of Rangeman, but I can also show Tank up," I snapped back.

Jase nodded and added "How you gonna prove it tho?" Just after Jase responded verbally, the stairwell door banged open and Tank appeared with Woody along beside him. Woody had a playful grin on his face as he walked up to us then greeted me with, "Hey Barton. You ready to learn how we drive here at Rangeman?"

"Cowboy here thinks himself the best driver in Jersey," Jase teased.

"No doubt about it, I am the best driver in the company and top five in Jersey," Woody boasted.

"We'll see," was all I said in return, though I smirked to myself.

"Later bro," Jase told me with a rough pat on my back to send me on my way.

Tank led Woody and I over to one of the company SUVs. Woody promptly climbed in the driver's seat, looked like he would be doing the practical part of my lesson and Tank would take the verbal. Woody started the vehicle, backed out of the garage and we were underway. Tank started the teaching portion right away.

"We're going to cover all aspects of defensive driving, watching all other vehicles around you at all times is most important. We'll also cover spotting and getting rid of a tail, as well as how to maintain a tail on someone without being detected. First rule is always be aware of the other drivers around you. You know how you drive, but there is no telling what they will do at any given moment. Constant vigilance is key."

Then Tank went through how to spot and lose a tail with me. Tank was aware that I already knew most of this stuff, but we had to keep up appearances for Woody's sake. Then they went on with how to keep up a tail on someone, this too I already knew how to do accurately; but I nodded along and spoke up at appropriate moments like a good boy.

After covering tails properly, we moved on to more extreme rules for defensive driving. Twenty minutes into that, I was starting to get antsy for my turn at the wheel. Finally I heard Tank ask me what I wanted to hear.

"You ready to try it now, Barton?"

"Absolutely," I replied with enthusiasm.

Woody pulled over and stopped in a nearby parking lot, then he exited the car to allow us to switch spots. He took my seat in the rear behind Tank and I slid into the driver's seat; right where I wanted to be the whole time. This was going to be fun!

I clicked the seat belt around me, tightening it up snugly, then adjusted the mirrors since Woody was a few inches taller than me. Once everything was set to my liking, we were on our way once again. Less than a mile down the road, Tank spoke up.

"Okay, choose a vehicle to tail, let me know which one and then do it."

I took in the surrounding cars and trucks, then made my decision.

"Purple Ford Ranger pick-up truck, two cars ahead of us in the opposite lane," I informed him.

"Alright, go for it," Tank answered.

Going into my zone, I proceeded to follow the truck I chose at a safe distance of no more than two cars between us. Keeping an eye out for any minor signs that he was changing lanes or turning. I didn't change lanes with him each time he did, but I was sure to turn with him, to make sure he stayed within my line of sight. The small fact that my eye sight was well above the average person was a detail that I kept to myself. I could have kept him in view with him being a mile or more away.

My tail took an unplanned turn, it had to be unplanned because he gave no signal he was about to change direction. In order to keep up with him, I had to jump a curb and veer sharply to the left; barely missing side swiping a red Honda in the lane beside me.

"Shit! Watch it dude," Woody grunted from the back seat.

After following the truck for another mile and a half, he pulled into the parking lot of an apartment building and left his truck to go inside. I guessed this tail was over and done with now. Tank supported my theory when he spoke next.

"Enough tailing, let's try losing a tail now."

Before he could remove his phone from his hip to call for back up from Rangeman to do the tailing, Woody drew our attention to him.

"Hey Tank, that looks like one of our skips. Didn't the file say that Max Johnson drove a bright green Chevy Camaro with dark purple racing stripes on it?"

"That's him alright." Tank agreed. "You can practice tailing him while I call into Rangeman for verification and someone to meet us at the station when we grab him."

"I got him," I assured him. With that said, I went into my driving zone.

By the time Tank informed me that back up was en route I had been following said Camaro for little over a mile. According to his sudden burst of speed, he finally noticed we were pursuing him and took off. The chase was on.

This guy was driving like he had a personal vendetta against that Chevy, taking tight turns on two wheels, weaving in and out of traffic, running red lights, and generally causing mayhem. I was starting to fear for the public's safety. He was an absolute menace behind the wheel. It was time to step this up a notch or two, and take defensive driving to a whole different level.

To start things off, I reached down and tightened my seat belt to an uncomfortable level. Then I shifted my foot down on the accelerator, making the SUV lurch forward in a sudden burst of speed. I noticed Tank take a deep breath and saw Woody reach for the 'oh shit' bar out of the corner of my eye.

The car ahead of me was half the original distance away now and I was gaining on it fast. He was less than a truck length ahead of me now. He was also getting bolder. He made a sharp left, blowing through a stop sign and nearly missed a child on a bike. This shit was starting to get dangerous, time to end it.

To keep up with him I had to jump another curb, which lifted all four wheels off of the pavement momentarily. The SUV jolted up off the road causing Tank's massive head to bounce against the roof of our vehicle. The glare he sent my way had me mumbling 'sorry' to him under my breath.

The next thing I knew the Camaro was skidding into a right turn, the rear of the car fish tailing dangerously close to a light pole. I took the same turn at eighty miles an hour bringing both right tires once again off of the street and nearly tipping the SUV in the process.

"Holy Shit!" Woody hollered from the rear seat.

I glanced over at Tank, sweat was pouring off his face in rivulets. His knuckles were white from gripping the seat so hard and he was looking green around the gills. 'Ut oh,' I thought to myself. 'Hold it in buddy.'

My foot pressed the gas pedal down a bit harder. I had a plan. When I was mere inches from the criminal in front of us, I jerked the wheel firmly to the right, clipping the left rear fender of the Camaro and instantly sending it into spin. It finally came to rest some fifty yards away, nestled safely in some knee high shrubbery at the roadside.

Slamming on the brakes and putting the SUV into park, I ripped off my seat belt and bounded out. As I sprinted to the other car, I grabbed my handcuffs from my back and slapped one onto the dazed driver's left wrist. Then I removed him from the car while snapping the other cuff on him.

By this time Woody hand joined me. I looked over my shoulder to see Tank slowly making his way towards us also. He was still looking quite pale and sickly. He must have lost at least four shades of his coloring, nearing Bobby's mocha skin tone. He was still sweating and shaking like a leaf.

That's when I realized our back up had also arrived. Jase and Les were jogging towards us.

Before Jase had a chance to speak, I heard a gurgling noise and reacted on instinct, quickly stepping back a couple of steps to avoid the mess flying towards Jase and myself from Tank's retching form. Jase however, was not so lucky. All of Tank's stomach contents ending up splattered all over the bottom of Jase's cargos and ruining his spit shined boots. I was able to contain my sudden urge to laugh out loud, but could not refrain from teasing him.

"That enough proof for you brother dear?"

"Fuck you Clinton Francis!" He snarled through gritted teeth while tamping down his own gag reflex.

"Dude, you're riding back by yourself. You reek!" Les commented between his guffaws. He had his hands resting on his knees, bent over at the waist, gasping for air.

"Tank, you alright man?" I asked. He still looked a little flushed, but after disposing of his lunch so efficiently, he was at least regaining some of his usual color.

"I will be. Who taught you to drive? Mario Andretti?"

"Classified information, if I told you, I'd have to kill you," I retorted.

"Hmph," Tank snorted. "I'll be passing you on all driving training just so I don't have to ride with you ever again."

"Whatever you say boss," I answered him before turning to Les and Jase once again. "Did you bring the paperwork on this asshole so we can turn him over to the cops?"

"Yeah man, his file is in our truck," Les told me. "I'll go grab it and then I'll ride with you and Woody to take him to the station. Tank needs to go back to Rangeman and let Bobby check him out, and Ram needs to go get cleaned up."

"Deal," Woody drawled. "But this time … I'm driving!"

"Sure," I laughed. "Hey Jase," I shouted at his retreating back.

"Yeah?" He asked over his shoulder.

"I want Chinese for dinner tonight. I'll be expecting it to be waiting on me at your place in two hours."

"Sure, whatever," he grumbled while flipping me off above his head.

Les, Woody, and I transferred our skip to the rear of the SUV and then made sure he was securely shackled for transport. I sat in the rear with him to make sure he behaved.

During the drive to the cop shop I texted Jase my dinner order. I assumed he received it, since he didn't see fit to reply. Ass.

When we arrived at the station, we escorted Mr. Johnson inside and Woody and I stood guard with him seated on the bench, still cuffed, whilst Les took care of the paperwork. It didn't take Les long to get the body receipt, then we were on our way home to Rangeman.

With Woody driving, it didn't take us long to get back and before I knew it my fist was knocking on the door to Tank's office. I waited a few minutes for a response but got none. Then Cal informed me that he was down in the infirmary with Brown. Two flights of stairs later I was knocking on the door to the clinic on the third floor. I walked right in, not waiting for an answer this time.

Tank was lounging back against some pillows on the exam table. There was an empty garbage can on the floor beside him. Even though there was nothing in the pail, the aroma of vomit still lingered in the room. Tank still looked a little queasy, but had almost regained his normal dark skin tone back. I walked over to stand beside him before speaking.

"Hey boss, how ya feeling? Any better?"

"Almost right," he replied after slowly turning his head in my direction.

"Sorry, didn't mean to turn you inside out. I was trained well in evasion and chase while driving by Agent Coulson. You think I'm bad, you should see him drive," I added.

"Well like I said before, I am never riding with your crazy ass again!" Tank exclaimed. I could only grin and nod my head as I agreed.

"Why did he end up in here with you, Brown?" I asked the company medic.

"His blood pressure went through the roof and he was slightly dehydrated, so I've made him rest for a bit while he drank a bottle or two of water. I still need to check his pressure again."

"Okay. Can I do anything to help?"

"Nah man, I got it covered, thanks anyway," Bobby responded.

"Alright then. I'll check with you later Tank," I told them, then turned to leave the infirmary.

I headed up to Jase's apartment on the fourth floor. He should be back with our dinner by now. When I reached his door, I found it unlocked; so I opened it and walked right in.

"Jase," I called out. "It's me your fabulous brother. You here?"

He poked his head around the corner to answer, "Yeah, dinner's on the counter. I'll be there in a few. I'm still cleaning up."

"No problem, I'll wait for you."

"Sure, pick out a movie to watch after we eat," Jase added before returning to the bathroom.

I looked through his DVD collection to see if anything caught my attention. He had an extensive array to choose from; comedies, dramas, westerns, and war movies. No way was I going to watch a blood bath, so action it would be. I picked out a movie and laid it down on the coffee table until we were ready to watch it.

A few minutes later Jase returned to the kitchen area. We separated the food and dug in. I always did love Chinese food, but my all time favorite was Italian. I couldn't help it, pasta was my weakness.

After we finished eating, we marched our stuffed asses to the living room couch to let supper settle. I picked up the DVD and showed it to Jase.

"I've never seen this movie. Is it any good?" I had chosen 'The Hurt Locker' for us to watch.

"I like it, it's pretty good. It's about a group of army specialists, bomb experts, on a tour of duty in Iraq."

"Okay, let's try it and see. I trust your taste," I replied.

Two and a half hours later I was a fan. It was a damn good movie. I agreed with Jase. I let him know.

"That was a pretty good flick. But I need to get my ass to my own place and crash. Tomorrow is going to be another busy day."

"Okay, night bro. I'll call you in the morning," Jase said through a yawn.

I declined his offer to see me out and left his apartment to go to my own.

One hot shower later and the bed was calling my name. With the alarm set, I settled down to get some rest. Tomorrow was a new day. I had been at Rangeman for nearly a week now and I had very little clue to who the mole could be. But I had no doubt, I would figure it out … with time. ######


	7. Pranks & Poker

**Clint POV**

Today started out like most others this past week, with me 'working' diligently at my desk. Everyone but the core team thought I was doing searches for up coming skips, but in actuality I was looking into the background checks of all of Rangeman's employees; minus the core team. I figured none of them would try to bankrupt a company that they were part owners of, would they?

So here I was, eye ball deep in background check files when what do my highly sensitive auditory implants pick up but a startled gasp coming from the direction of Santos' office. Seconds later the whole floor picks up on his curse, "What the fucking hell?!"

I couldn't have stopped the shit eating grin on my face if I tried. My prank worked.

Earlier this morning; like the 0300 witching hour; I sneaked my way into his office and put my plan in motion. With the help of Bobby and Jase, who were on late night monitor duty. Moments later the stage was set.

Stopping by the monitor room on my way back to my apartment, I spoke to Jase and Bobby.

"You'll keep this to yourselves?"

"Hell yeah," Bobby started. "Santos is the resident prankster, so any time someone gives him a taste of his own medicine, I'm definitely down with it."

"Ditto here man," Jase added with an enthusiastic nod and an evil smirk.

"Thanks guys," I replied before turning away and heading for the fourth floor to get a few hours of rest. The work day would come all too soon.

Now here I was, sitting at my desk reaping the rewards of my hard work. Santos had some prank competition with me around. I was known at SHIELD for my own cruel humor and practical jokes. Santos wouldn't know what hit him.

Now listening to his fuming voice, I had to go investigate. But first I needed to get my grin under control and put on my blank face.

I strolled across the hallway to Santos' office and waltzed right in, most of the other guys were already there, so knocking seemed pointless.

Les was looking like he could kick someone's ass, namely mine; if he only knew. It was Hal who asked the question that was on all of their minds.

"What's wrong?"

"This," he growled, pointing at his computer.

Hal and the others stepped around to see what he was talking about. I also peered around Hal's tall form, even though I knew what was there.

"What the holy hell is that?" Cal stammered.

"Never knew you swung that way Santos," Ram joked.

"I don't man, you know that. I love the ladies and the ladies adore the Santos charm and swagger," Les grumbled, then bragged.

"Not what it looks like to me," Bobby laughed. "Looks as if you like the beef cake from here."

"Fuck off Brown! I didn't do this. And when I find out who did, he is dead meat, headed for Siberia; naked, locked in a wooden crate with only a toothpick for defense!"

With everyone else guffawing, I thought it was safe to let my smile break through with a low chuckle. Last night, okay, earlier this morning; I had downloaded a virus onto Santos' computer that would only allow gay porn to be opened on it. Sitting on the screen was some very interesting images of naked men in compromising positions. I was a genius!

"What's going on in here?" Tank's voice boomed from the doorway.

"Seems Santos here has some unauthorized material up on his computer boss man," Cal explained.

"Knock it off Cal, I told you. I didn't do this shit," Les defended himself.

Tank made his way to the other side of the desk and stared at the screen in awe, or was that repulsion? Either way he seemed to be holding in his own peals of laughter, that is, if the twitching in the corner of his mouth was anything to go by.

"Find a new favorite porn site did you Les?" Tank asked with a small grin. All Les could do was hang his head and mutter under his breath.

"He claims he didn't do it," Woody drawled.

"Where's Hector?" Tank inquired.

Ram pulled his phone off of his belt and started speaking in rapid Spanish. I guessed that meant he was calling Hector to come up to investigate.

"Hec's on his way," Ram told Tank.

"Back to work you bunch of slackers. Hector will check things out here. Move!" Tank barked out the command. Quiet snickers followed us out of the room.

Jase followed me back to my desk. "That was classic man. But aren't you worried Hector will figure out where it came from? He is brilliant with computers." He leaned in to whisper to me.

"Nope, used a non-traceable portable flash drive," I intoned at the same volume.

"You slick fucker," he muttered nearly silently.

"So what's the plan for the rest of the day?" I asked.

"Don't know, I'll have to ask around," he responded before walking away to do just that.

This left me alone at my desk again, so I got back to work checking on the soldiers of Rangeman. My eyes were starting to cross from all the data I was pouring through. Glancing down at my watch, I noticed it was lunch time, good thing too; I needed the break.

The trek to the break room was short and as I scanned the room, I saw that Jase was already waiting on me, so I joined him. He had my food too, nice brother.

"What did you get me to eat?" I wondered as I took my seat across from him.

"Best meal in town, made with love right here on site," he began. "Ella's beef stew."

"Cheap skate," I countered. "You still owe me dinner from our driving bet."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll pay up …. one day."

"Did you find out if the guys had anything planned for tonight?"

"Sure did," Jase said while trying to keep his mouth closed and chew.

"What's up?"

"Poker game at Les' apartment," Jase informed me.

"Who all is going to be there?"

"Les, Bobby, Woody, Cal, Manny, Vince, and Binkie so far, why? Do you want to go?"

"Why not, sounds fun, and profitable. Not to mention it could be good for intel gathering," I finished.

"True. So let them know we're in?" Jase put out there.

"Yep, we'll be there. How did it go with Hector and Les' computer? What did he say about it?"

"Don't know. He wouldn't report to me. He'd go to the core team with that privileged info," Jase stated.

"Okay, I'll talk to one of them then, probably Tank or Bobby. They seem to like me the most."

"Whatever you think is best bro," Jase uttered around a bite of stew. We finished the rest of our lunch in silence. After placing our dishes in the sink for Ella, we left the room and headed back to work; me to my desk again and Jase to the gun range. I would join him later for a little stress relief or maybe I should head down there now.

With a quick change of course, I was headed to the stairs and the range instead of my desk. My computer screen was giving me a headache anyway.

I was right, it did feel good to get down there and release some stress through shooting and Jase seemed to be able to read me. He knew I would follow him, so he brought my bow down for me. My brother was beginning to grow on me, dare I think that I was starting to love him like we had known each other all of our lives and not just for a few scant days. Or maybe it was our twin bond showing more than ever. We were starting to think alike. Scary, _really_ scary!

Two hours and countless arrows later, I felt relieved and ready to take on my coworkers at poker. I knew being ex-military they all must have excellent poker faces, but I felt mine was better. Tonight was going to be fun.

 ** _Later that evening_** …

Entering Les' apartment I could tell the party, or poker game, hadn't started yet. The only ones here were Les, Bobby, Jase and myself. I pulled Bobby aside to talk to him while Jase kept Les occupied helping him set up for the game.

"What did Hector say about Les' computer? He know anything?"

"Nah, you're in the clear. All he could find out was that a virus was uploaded to it from an outside source, most likely a flash drive," Bobby soothed me by saying.

"Thanks man, you think he will ever figure it out? Should I be worried for later?"

"No way. You covered your tracks well it seems."

"Good," I nodded. I knew I was home free, I never really had any doubt that I would be.

Then we helped Les and Jase with the preparations. We only had like thirty minutes to get things finalized. The rest of the guys would be here soon.

Ten minutes later, Les' living space was full of Rangemen. All they guys Jase mentioned earlier were here and ready to play. We had the table set up in the center of the room with the cards, still sealed in the pack, poker chips, ashtrays, drinks on coasters, and snacks placed in their appropriate places waiting for the game to begin.

We stood around for a bit chatting until Les shouted out, "Game time," then we all took our seats around the table. Jase was on my left and Bobby to my right, then Les, Woody, Vince, Cal, Manny, and Binkie made up the rest of the players. 'Let the game begin' I thought to myself.

Vince picked up the still unopened pack of cards and tore into them. He spent several minutes shuffling them thoroughly, then he dealt out the first hand. He had called five card draw for this hand with nothing wild. Each dealer had the choice of changing the game options with each hand he dealt.

I glanced down at my cards, pair of Jacks, nice start. I threw the other three down and waited for my fresh cards. Not much help there, I got three non-matching cards which stuck me with only the pair. I could work with this.

After the round of bets only three of us were left, Vince, Jase, and I. The chips I placed in the center of the table equaled fifty-five dollars. Vince folded, but Jase saw right through my bluff and called me, damn it bro. He turned his cards over and showed a set of threes, oh well. I tossed my cards into the discard pile, not showing them.

Cal had the next deal, same game, same rules. Bobby won that one over Les and started the smack talk.

"And the host goes down."

The next few hands passed by quickly with me winning my first one, Bobby winning his second and the rest of the guys having won at least once. Finally it was my deal. As I shuffled the deck, I spoke.

"Five card draw is the game, one-eyed jacks are wild, no four card draws unless you have an Ace showing. Ante up losers!"

"Oh shit, we're in trouble," Woody groaned and I could have sworn I heard Les cussing in Spanish under his breath.

"I have a funny feeling we shouldn't be letting him deal," Cal whined. That's right the guy with the flaming skull tattoo actually whined.

"Come on guys, I would never cheat. Gimme a break!"

"So you say," Jase added his own brotherly dig.

"Screw you Jase! Just sit back and play your hand," I remarked as I dealt the last card to myself.

"Quick question," Binkie started to ask. "What the hell is a one-eyed jack?" I grinned back at him as I answered.

"It's exactly like it sounds. It's the two jacks that have only one eye, the jack of hearts and the jack of spades. And for future reference, the 'suicide kings' are the king of hearts because it appears to have a sword going through the back of his head, and the king of diamonds for the same reason but with an ax."

"Learn something new every day," he replied, then we resumed play.

Vince won that hand. Les got up from the table and went down the hallway supposedly to the bedroom, or he could have been hitting the head. Moments later he returned carrying a wooden box. It looked to me like it contained cigars. When Les offered one, I knew I was correct in my assumption.

"Cigar anyone?" He said holding out the opened box containing Louixs brand which I knew to cost about fifty dollars apiece, not bad. I also knew that they were made in Nicaragua. All of the guys took one, except Manny. When Les asked why he replied, "I only smoke 'Cohiba' brand, Cuban cigars."

Barring him, the rest of us lit up and enjoyed the flavor as the smoke started drifting throughout the room, giving it an authentic poker feel. All we needed now was a ton of liquor and we would be set. But since it was Tuesday and we all had to work tomorrow, we refrained from the spirits.

Since it was his turn to deal, Jase picked up the deck and started to shuffle. Les and I seemed to be winning the most. Our chip stacks were quite a bit larger than everyone else's. Poor Cal's and Binkie's piles appeared to be dwindling at an alarming rate. Looked to me like they would be the first ones out of the game. But what the hell, we were having loads of fun.

"I'm getting hungry, pass me the corn chips and salsa, will ya Cal?" I begged with a rumble from my mid section.

Cal slid the bowl with the chips in it towards me and Jase handed me another smaller bowl with the salsa. I immediately dug in, crunching my way through a handful pretty fast. I must have been hungrier than I realized.

Les on the other hand, could not settle for chips alone as he once again rose from his chair and faced the kitchen. "I need something more substantial than junk food. Anyone else want a sandwich, or would you all rather I ordered in some Shorty's pizza?"

"Sounds good man," was the reply from most of the room, except for Bobby who had to torment Les some.

"As long as you don't offer us some of your salami." His comment had every single man in the room in stitches, laughing our asses off.

"Fuck off Brown! Just for that the pizza is your treat," Les countered.

"Whatever man, it was worth it," Bobby volleyed back at him.

"Then get your fat ass on the phone to Shorty's. We'll be needing five or six of his large pies. And your comedic self can go pick them up, too."

Bobby in return flipped him off, but snatched his phone off his hip with his other hand and placed the order. Fifteen minutes later he was out the door to pick up our food.

While he was gone, we continued to play and joke around. Just as I suspected, Binkie and Cal were the first players out. From the looks of the stacks in front of us, Woody, Vince, and maybe Manny would be the next victims. There was now a three way run for first between Les, Jase, and myself. Bobby could go either way, his stack was midway between the top three and the bottom three; that is if we didn't fuck with his pile while he was gone. But like the gentlemen I believed they were, they resisted cheating.

Turns out I was right about two of the next people knocked out of the game, Vince and Manny; but the third was a shock to me. Bobby was eliminated when he went all in on a full house and Jase took him down with four of a kind; nines. That left Les, Jase, Woody and I playing.

Three hands later Jase was up against me one on one and I shut him down for the night with a club flush to his three of a kind. Did I show him some brotherly love or what? He wouldn't say so, but I beat him with the utmost love and respect.

Five minutes later Les knocked cowboy Woody out. None of us saw that jack high straight flush coming, best hand of the night bar none.

"Looks like it's just you and me now, Barton. You ready to lose?" Les bragged. It was time for me to take him down a few notches.

"Put your money where your wise ass mouth is Santos, while you still have some," I taunted.

"Let's make it interesting then. Last hand, winner take all," he suggested.

"Fine. And how about a side bet?"

"Like what?" He asked.

"Loser buys the winner a lap dance at the strip club. We're all going Saturday night right," I uttered around the huge evil smirk on my face.

"Hell yeah, my kind of prize. You're on!" Les eagerly agreed.

When the last cards were drawn and the cards finally laid face up in the center of the table, I couldn't believe my eyes. That fucking prick had drawn an Ace high diamond flush, barely beating out my queen high spade flush. Then the cheeky bastard started with the gloating.

"Ah, the sweet taste of victory. Oh and by the way, I like blondes with huge tits, keep that in mind for my lap dance Saturday night."

"Whatever you say Santos, congratulations," I replied sincerely.

"Good game guys," Bobby stated.

"Well it's nearing midnight, that means it's time to break up the party. We all need to get some kind of rest for work tomorrow," Jase urged.

"Right you are bro. Night fellas, see you tomorrow," I agreed with my twin.

We were met with nods of concurrence before we all left to go our separate ways. Jase and I headed down the hall to our apartments. I gave him a one armed hug then bid him "goodnight" while unlocking the door to mine. I was suddenly very tired and sleepy. I couldn't wait to crash.

Fifteen minutes later after a fast efficient shower, I was doing just that. Even though I only had about five hours to rest, I knew I would be ready to face the day when the sun came up. ######################


	8. Distraction Training

**Clint POV**

For my workout this morning, I had chosen to pummel one of the punching bags hanging in the far corner of the gym. Along with quick jabs, hooks, uppercuts, and roundhouse punches; my feet were landing punishing kicks too. It was an all around good workout, but still not as good as sparring against someone, that worked your mind as well. Alas, since I didn't trust anyone well enough to spar yet, perhaps besides my brother Jase; I elected to go at one of the bags instead.

My seemed personal vendetta against the bag was momentarily interrupted when I sensed someone behind me. Naturally my next blow was directed at the intruder. Jase caught my fist with ease, blocking it from connecting with his jaw.

"Whoa, bro. Ease up. It's only me," he tried to soothe.

"Sorry Jase. I was into my workout. That was a natural reflex, part of the training. You should know that."

"Yea, I do. I was just pulling your leg," he grinned. "You having fun?"

"Not really, would be more entertaining if you joined me in the ring for a spar. You game?"

"Just promise to take it easy on me," he began. "Remembering what you did to Tank a few days ago, I know you could probably lay me out easily." I chuckled at his whining.

We both made our way to the sparring ring and climbed in. After a few stretches, we started circling each other. I gave one last comment before we started.

"Pull punches, no need to beat the crap outta each other before work."

Jase nodded his head in agreement, then we each went in our zones and the bout was on. We were too engrossed in our match to notice that we had drawn a small crowd of guys who were working out earlier.

I heard a few of them tossing out suggestions to us, but mostly they all stood there watching quietly. It only lasted for about twenty more minutes before I swept Jase's legs from under him and pulled a punch that was aimed at his throat that would have put an end to the match anyway. We both sat back on the mat to catch out breath.

"You okay?" I asked my brother.

"Yea, you sure are a sneaky son of a bitch tho," Jase replied.

"Remind me never to piss you off Barton," I heard Les call out from the sidelines.

"Don't ever piss me off Santos," I responded cheekily.

We were met with laughs all around. I stood and reached my hand down to assist Jase. He took it and rose to his feet joining me. When the chuckles subsided, I glanced at my watch. It was nearing 0700. I needed to get my ass to the shower so I wouldn't be late for the morning meeting.

"Later jokers. Meeting in a few and I need a shower," I flung over my shoulder as I made my way to the locker rooms.

"Good, cause you stink Barton," I heard someone snark back. It sounded like Santos, prick.

Forgetting Santos momentarily, I shed my workout gear and hopped under the hot spray of the open shower stall. I let the water sluice down my body for a minute or two, then I reached for the bottle of body wash on the shelf.

Squirting some on the cloth, I began to wash, while thinking to myself this was a strangely scented body wash. It had an almost medicinal smell to it.

That's when I realized that more than sweat and grime was coming off of my body with the suds on the cloth. Clinging to the terry cloth material were the fine hairs that once resided on my arms and chest. I cringed when I remembered the first area that I cleaned. I groaned as I looked down at my crotch and noticed that it too was hair free. What the actual fuck?!

'I'm gonna kill him!' I thought harshly to myself. Yes, an arrow between his eyes would do nicely.

I rinsed off then quickly redressed in a new uniform. With determination I stalked my way back to the gym, hoping Lester 'fucking' Santos was stupid enough to be still hanging around. Luck was not on my side, the gym was now deserted. Of course it was, it was nearly time for the morning meeting. I needed to get my ass upstairs.

All the loud talking dulled down to a light whispering when I entered the conference room. But I paid them no mind as I sat down in the empty chair beside my brother. Santos was across the large table and had a gleeful smirk on his face. I glared back at him, he would get what was coming to him. I told you I was the unchallenged prank master of SHIELD, time to show Santos that fact.

Jase wrinkled his nose when I took my seat next to him. I caught him before he could ask me about it.

"Don't ask, I'll explain later. All I'm going to say right now is Lester 'whatever the hell his middle name is' Santos is a dead man!" I growled out.

"Okay," Jase began. "And for future reference, it's Mateo."

I grunted my acknowledgment so he understood that I heard him and filed the information for later usage. All sound ground to a halt when Tank entered the room and barked out a gruff, "At ease."

Then the meeting was underway. Tank went through all the normal stuff, assignments, updates on each department, listing of any injuries, and finally ended with new items.

"We have an outstanding skip, Edward Hamilton, wanted for his third rape charge. He's also not afraid to assault arresting officers, so he will more than likely try to fight us. Our best bet is a distraction tonight. His bond is up in two days time," Tank summarized.

I was familiar with the concept of a distraction. We had used them in SHIELD with female agents and once in a while even male agents. But in order to keep up appearances for the employees who were not core team or Jase, Tank went on to 'explain' what would go down tonight.

"A distraction is when we use an attractive female, or male when the skip's tastes stray in that direction, to lure said skip out of a bar or club usually. Hamilton is going to be at the "Hole in the Wall" bar some time after 2100 tonight according to our intel. I'll call in one of the female contract workers we keep on hand for these type of things. Cal and myself will be working the front door as bouncers, Woody, you got the bar again, Santos and Vince will take care of the rear exit, Bobby, Barton and Ram will be working the inside as customers, and Hector, Junior, and Binkie will be floating around in the area near the bar also, just in case. We'll meet in the garage at 2000 in order to have sufficient time to prepare. Any questions?" When he was met with silence, Tank dismissed us.

Everyone started to make their way out of the room. The glare I sent Santos as he passed by me, still smirking, would have made a lesser man piss himself. "You better run," I snarled to his retreating form.

Jase and I strolled towards our desks, stopping at mine. I flopped my ass into my chair and rubbed my fingers across the bridge of my nose. I looked up again at the sound of Jase's voice.

"So you gonna tell me what that was about? And why do you smell funny? It smells kinda like watermelons."

"Seems your buddy Les got me back for the gay porn thing. I still don't know how in the hell he knew it was me."

"So what did he do?" Jase wondered.

"Depilatory cream in my body wash bottle. I have to admit, it was good."

My loving brother doubled over with laughter at that. Jerk. Once he was able to breathe again, he gasped out a new question.

"How much did you lose?"

"All you see …. and everything you can't," I grumbled. He looked pointedly to my scalp and said through a snicker.

"Well at least it wasn't your shampoo bottle."

I sighed and banged my head against my desk until Jase slid his hand under my forehead to catch it. Picking my head up again, I gazed up at my brother before responding.

"Thanks bro, I feel the love."

Jase just patted my on the shoulder and gave me a sincere smile, then spoke again.

"We better get to work. I got tons of shit to do at the range. It's time for a complete inventory."

"Yeah, yeah, get your sorry ass to work. I got backgrounds to check myself," I groaned. I hated sitting here staring at a computer screen all day. I was all about the action.

Jase gave me a playful salute before turning to walk away for the gun range. Lucky bastard.

Nearly four hours later my eyes were starting to cross and I had the beginnings of a headache. Damn computer screen! I uncrossed my eyes the best I could, stood, and stretched. That's when my stomach reminded me that it was lunch time.

The break room was my next stop. Scanning the room, I didn't see anyone I wanted to spend meal time with. The only guys there were Junior, Manny, Zip, and Zero. I walked over to them and addressed Manny since he was the one of the group that I was the most familiar with.

"Hey Manny, you seen Ram?"

"Far as I know he's still in the range. Why don't you check there?"

I thanked him and nodded my head in silent dismissal before turning and leaving the room.

The elevator ride down to the basement levels was a short one. Perhaps that was because I was so busy smacking myself for not thinking about checking the firing range in the first place. The soft swish of the elevator doors brought me out of my funk.

I pulled the door to the range open and entered. Jase was busy counting ammunition with a clipboard in his hands. This, I supposed, was the tedious part of his job. Then again I would rather be counting guns and ammo than of staring at a computer monitor while my ass got numb. At least I would be around weaponry.

"How about a break, bro. It's lunch time," I called out across the room, hearing a slight echo bounce back to me.

He jerked his head up at the sound of my voice and grinned big as he replied.

"Hell yes! Now that you mention food, I realize that I'm starving. So where are we going?"

"I'm feeling a need for a greasy burger. Where do I find one in this town?"

"Oh, I know this great little diner up the road that serves the best burgers and shakes in town," he admitted with his eyes twinkling. It looked to me like he would start to drool any second.

"Sounds good. Let's hit the road," I told him. With that we were on our way to one of the fleet SUVs in the garage.

Minutes later we were sitting in a booth at a quaint little diner, then placed our orders for double cheeseburgers, fries, and milkshakes for each of us.

We conversed quietly for a few minutes while we waited for our food to arrive. Once it was delivered to our table, I was sinking my teeth into one of the most mouth-watering burgers I had ever eaten.

"You're right, this thing is pretty good," I admitted to Jase.

"Told ya so," he smiled back.

That was the last of our talking. We were too busy devouring our food to take time out for conversation. When the plates were empty and our bellies full, Jase tossed a couple of bills onto the table to cover our bill with a nice tip for the waitress. Then we headed back to the work grind. Jase had now paid me back one of the meals he owed me as the result of our previous bets.

Later that evening, after work we spent some quality time in the shooting range working on our brotherly bonding. Nothing beats shooting the shit out of some targets for male bonding.

Just as our arms were starting to get tired, it was time to head down to the garage to prepare for the distraction tonight.

After we made a quick change into civilian clothes, since we were playing customers tonight, and picking up extra weapons, we were in the elevator riding down to the garage level. I had made sure earlier in the day that my bow case was packed in Jase's SUV. We would be riding in it together along with Bobby, who was working inside with us. We would arrive at the bar as a trio of friends out for a good time.

In the garage, Tank was giving out last minute instructions for everyone as he passed out the comm units for our ears, all except Woody. He left almost an hour ago for his 'shift' as bartender. Tank had explained to me earlier today that he was there to make sure that our girl didn't get any doctored drinks, thus looking out for her safety.

Then he introduced those of us who didn't know her, to Ms. Nikki Monroe. She was about five foot ten, that was with the four and a half inch heels she was sporting. Her blonde hair flowed just past the shoulder straps of the tight little black dress she wore. Damn, she was cute! Mind out of the gutter Barton, I chided myself.

Once we were all sufficiently briefed, we climbed in vehicles and were on our way. This should prove to be an interesting night. Bobby, Jase, and I were mostly quiet on the way to the bar. But as we exited the SUV, we became quite loud and vocal, lending to our appearance of three rowdy dudes out on the town.  
We gave slight jerks of our heads in acknowledgment of Tank and Cal who had just taken their spots as bouncers. It took a little bit of adjustment once we entered the darker atmosphere inside of the bar. I quickly scanned the area around us, noticing that Bobby and Jase were doing the same thing; getting a feel of where everyone was and where the exits were located, along with any potentially problematic points.

I spotted our skip sitting at the far end of the bar, nursing a beer. Jase and Bobby nodded to me that they saw him too. We stopped at the near end of the bar, away from our skip and ordered a round of beers for ourselves; for appearances only of course. We then decided loudly to play some pool, then made our way to the pool table, still keeping our eyes on the skip.

We had been playing and sipping slowly on our beers every few minutes when Tank's voice sounded in our ears.

"Heads up, Nikki just arrived to the party."

We covertly watched as she sidled up to the bar a few stools down from our skip and ordered a jack and coke from Woody. He would make sure that she only received a Coke with a stirring stick. I chuckled to myself when I saw him plop a cherry into her drink at the last second before handing it over with a wink; real smooth cowboy.

Nikki sauntered over to the stool next to our skip and sat down daintily. Crossing her legs with a sultry smile on her face, she baited him into conversation easily. We all listened as she sweet talked him into walking her to her car several minutes later.

Bobby, Jase, and I ended our phony pool game strolling to the front in order to be outside waiting when they exited. We were a couple of minutes ahead of them and in place near our SUV with plenty of time to spare.

"Mark is on the way out," Bobby said into our ear pieces just as we walked through the door and between Tank and Cal.

When we got to our vehicle, we turned to face the bar's door and waited patiently. Barely two minutes later, Nikki walked out with the skip in tow behind her.

A gnawing feeling in my gut warned me that something wasn't quite right with how close he was to her back. That paired with the fact that his hand was inching towards his left front pocket; he was reaching for something. 'Shit,' I thought to myself before I spoke aloud to Bobby and Jase, with the rest of the guys listening in on comms.

"He's going for something in his pocket. Be ready."

Tank and Cal stiffened in preparation to move at a moment's notice, as did the three of us. I was not surprised to see Les and Vince sneak around the corner of the building from their post at the back door. Movement on the roof told me that Hector, Junior, and Binkie were near as well.

We were all expecting the knife that the skip pulled out and placed against Nikki's throat. We also heard him tell her, "You're coming with me," through the mic she was wearing somewhere on her person. It took only a split second for a total of seven guns to be trained on the skip and who knows what the guys on the roof had aimed at him.

The next thirty seconds were tense as the skip took in the danger surrounding him. It was obvious that he had no idea why so many people were pointing weapons at him. That short gap in his attention span was all that was needed for one of us to attack.

To all of our shocks, it was Nikki who retaliated against her captor. A fast backwards jerk of her head sent the skip's head bouncing back, blood pouring from his nose and the knife in his hand skidding across the pavement. A split second later she turned and freed herself from his grip, launching a jab with the heel of her palm to the center of his chest forcing him to the ground gasping for air.

Tank and Cal wasted no time in getting to him, flipping him over, and cuffing his arms behind his back. Tank snarled out the typical, "We represent Rangeman, Inc. and your bondsman and we are taking your FTA ass back to jail". With the threat now subdued, we all holstered our weapons.

Bobby immediately made his way over to Nikki to make sure she was okay medically. She assured him and the rest of us that she was fine, not a scratch on her. She was a strong woman and could take care of herself, I concluded after watching her in action. Exactly why was this deduction stirring things below my belt? 'Down boy,' I muttered under my breath.

I watched as Tank and Cal loaded the skip into the back of a Rangeman SUV, none to gently mind you. The skip would be sporting a few fresh bruises by the time he got to the police station, and maybe a mild concussion with the way Tank _accidentally_ smacked his head against the roof of the car. Ouch.

When the tail lights of their SUV started getting more distant, the rest of us began to drift towards our own vehicles; glad for the night to be over. Jase, Bobby, and I returned to our ride for the trip back to Rangeman.

It was nearing 2300 hours by the time we made it back to the building. The debrief would be included in the morning meeting. We were all too tired for it at the moment and some of us had early shifts also. Bobby parked, then we all shuffled to the elevator.

Jase and I were left alone when Bobby got off on the third floor. We didn't speak until we got out on the fourth floor and were dragging ourselves down the hall to our apartments.

"Night bro, I'll see you in the morning," Jase sighed.

"You too," I told him as I opened my apartment door.

His answer was the soft clicking of his apartment door closing behind him. I sighed as I closed and locked my own door. After another fast efficient shower, I was finally face down in my pillows and out like a light soon after that. I needed to get some rest so I would be ready to face more fun that tomorrow would inevitably bring. ###################


	9. Bad Vibes and the Pranks Continue

**Hal POV**

The morning meeting went well. The main topic of discussion was the previous night's distraction. Nikki had done a fantastic job of taking care of herself and not depending on us, like someone else would have no doubt done. We were all extremely proud of her. Although I did notice a slight look of disgust on one of the guy's faces at all the praise she was receiving.

Now that the meeting was over, I was sitting in my office tackling some of this mound of paperwork that needed to get done. A loud knocking against the door jamb took my attention away from the forms in front of me.

"Enter," I called out before looking up.

The same face I was questioning earlier in the meeting was standing before me. "What do you need?" I asked him.

After he passed over the threshold to my office, he quietly closed the door behind himself and then sat down in front of me. I waited patiently for him to begin.

 **Mole POV**

I tried to look calm, cool, and collected while I knocked on the door jamb to Hal's office, making sure my blank face was in place; just in case. He looked up from his pile of paperwork as he uttered "enter", then he asked me what he could do for me. He was about to find out. I needed to see how close they were to figuring out who our elusive mole was, namely me, and I thought that Hal out of all of the core team members would be the easiest to finesse info out of, let's see if I was right.

"Sorry to bother you sir," I began. "But I was wondering what the status is on finding out who the mole is. We don't get updates on it in the normal morning meetings."

I watched as he slowly scrutinized me. His eyes bore holes into me and made me feel slightly uneasy. Did he know something?

"We don't give updates, because there are none to give. We're still working on it together with a little added help," he finally admitted.

"What does that mean? You're bringing someone else in to investigate? Who?" I was beginning to panic a little. I just hoped it didn't come through in my voice.

"This is a Rangeman problem. To be handled by us," he gritted out.

I breathed a sigh of relief and passed it off with a nod of my head. I still wasn't convinced, something about the tone of his voice bothered me.

"We all hate the fact that our tight knit family was betrayed. Do we get a chance at retribution when the time comes?" I asked with venom in my tone. I felt a need to cover my tracks, so to speak.

"Trust me soldier, every man in this building will get a chance at his throat once we find out who dared to betray our trust," Hal growled.

A slight nod of my head was my only response before I turned to leave Hal's office. I did throw over my shoulder on the way, "Thanks".

I scoffed in disgust as I strolled back to my desk to think about this. Hal didn't give up a whole lot of information, but then again I didn't really expect him to. To me, he's not the smartest tack on the cork board. Why would they promote him to core team anyway? He never did anything to prove himself worthy in my opinion.

Furthermore, what did he mean by "a little added help"? Were they going to call someone else in? Or had they already brought them in? Who was it? If they were already here, it could only be the new guy. I would have to keep an eye on him to make sure before taking drastic action.

Drawing my mind back to my work I began to flip through the folders lying on my desk and choose a report to finish. The other things would have to wait, I needed to get back to work to keep up my facade.

A shuffling of feet and murmuring of hushed voices caught my attention again. I glanced up from my report to see Santos and Bobby talking quietly outside of Tank's office. They were soon joined by Tank, Hal, Ram and the new guy. They all strode to the elevator as a unit. I assumed they were going to lunch somewhere off site to discuss me and didn't want to be overheard, smart move on their part. This was about to get interesting.

 **Hal POV**

 _Something is off with that boy_ , I thought to myself after he left. He was acting peculiar. The guys would have an interest in updates on the progress we were making in identifying the mole, but he seemed to be a little too eager to know what was going on; like he needed to be put at ease. I would have to keep him under more intense scrutiny in the foreseeable future.

Also, I had to let the others know of my new found concerns. I picked up my desk phone and called the other three members of the core team, along with Barton and Ram, so we could all talk this out. They all agreed to meet me at Shorty's in twenty.

Exactly twenty minutes later we were meeting on the parking lot at Shorty's. Together we walked into our favorite hangout.

Ram and Barton had positioned themselves at the end of the table across from each other. Les and Bobby, who had ridden with us, were seated in the two chairs across from Tank and I. We chatted until the waitress brought our drinks and took our food order.

After this little impromptu meeting, Les and Bobby were going after one of our higher bond skips. Tank and I used the excuse of needing to check on a client who had called earlier. While who knew what the twins were going to be up to later, no good more than likely.

This is how our conversation during lunch went. Tank took charge of our little meeting and started the inquisition.

"You wanted us all here Hal, so what's on your mind?"

"I just had a visitor to my office asking questions about how much we knew about the mole," I started before Les interrupted me.

"Who?"

Tank, Bobby, and the twins all looked like they were interested in my answer as well so I told them who had just came by my office to see me. Bobby, Tank, and Ram all looked a little shocked but something in Barton's eyes told me he wasn't surprised to hear that name.

"His asking about the investigation is understandable. Every man here wants to know who had big enough balls to dare infiltrate our secure building. Is that why you called this little meeting of the minds? What else is going on?" Tank said with a hint of his fierce anger beginning to show.

"It was his whole demeanor that's bothering me," I began after taking a deep breath. "Something about the glint in his eyes when I told him we had nothing yet. It was like he was relieved by that knowledge."

Barton, who had been quiet this whole time, took this moment to speak up. "I've been getting weird vibes from him too. My gut instinct keeps telling me that something is off with him and my gut is never wrong about this kind of thing."

"Hmm … Intuition is sometimes a soldier's best weapon. You should never ignore it," Tank provided. We all grunted in agreement, then Bobby spoke up again.

"So, what do we do from here, besides watching him a little closer?"

"We need solid proof," Ram added.

"If it is him, he will eventually slip up and make a mistake that will reveal himself," Les put in.

"Should we ask our 'electronics genius' to tag him? He could watch his every move more carefully than we would be able to," I offered.

"No, if Hector got the slightest clue of the mole's identity, he would carve him up and hide the pieces before any of us had a chance to get our hands on him," Les grumbled.

"Too true," Ram chuckled.

"Santos is right. The six of us can keep our eyes on him. We should be able to keep tabs on him at all time between the lot of us," Tank supplied.

"Okay, that's settled then, we watch him like a hawk until he gives himself away. Is there anything else we need to discuss while we're all here?" Bobby inquired.

"No, I think that's all for now," Tank started. "Just keep each other informed if anything new develops." We all uttered "Yes sir," and then rose to leave, Les and Bobby first, with me and the twins following.

So, with our bellies full of Shorty's delicious pizza, we rode back to Rangeman in our two separate vehicles. Tank and I dropped Bobby and Les back at the garage so they could grab the file on their skip and to acquire a ride. Meanwhile Tank and I left to go check on that client who was having problems with their alarm system. I still had no clue what the twins had planned.

 **Ram POV**

Clint and I were in the SUV on our way back to Rangeman when I decided it would be better to talk about the lunch meeting before we made it back to the building with the big ears.

"So, what do you think of all that?" I pried.

"Like I said back there, I've been having hinky feelings about him for a few days now," my brother replied.

"Me too, but I suppose your gut reactions are a little stronger than mine."

"I don't think that's the case. With us being twins, I think our guts would be the same and we both feel something is definitely off with that dude," Clint groused with a heavily expelled breath.

"Yea, his behavior is way off," I agreed. "So what do you want to do later or when we get back?" I added as an after thought.

"Doesn't matter to me really but I need to work off that pizza somehow."

"What about a workout in the gym, then we could catch the game on TV tonight; just us, none of the other guys would be invited," I suggested.

"Okay sounds good to me. Drive on Jeeves," Clint laughed at his own joke.

"Funny brother," I grumbled teasingly.

The rest of the ride back to Rangeman was short, I was pulling into the under ground garage in no time at all. We quickly exited the vehicle and headed to the stair well and up two flights to the second floor on which the gym was located.

Being that it was so late in the afternoon, nearing 1800 hours, there were not many guys there. Looking around I only saw a few men; Zero, Vince, and Manny were on the treadmills, Cal and Bones were in the sparring ring, and I noticed Les trying to hide in the corner behind one of the punching bags hanging there. He must not have remembered my eye sight was much better than the normal person. I know Clint must have spotted him lurking around because his line of sight went there and lingered for a few seconds, then he turned his head to look at me and gave a short jerk of his head in that general direction.

We decided to let it go for now and start our own short workout. My brother and I ambled over to the weight benches to the rear of the room. Clint removed a pair of weight lifting gloves from one of the small storage cubicles hanging on the wall that was designated as his. All of the employees had one personalized to him for storing items that we used frequently while in the gym; items like gloves, chalk, wrist bands, and a few even held I-Pods or other music listening devices.

I watched as Clint pulled the first glove on and made a strange face, it was a mixture of disgust and repulsion. That grimace quickly changed to a look of fury, shorty after which I heard him mumble "Santos".

"What's wrong?" I inquired.

"Here, see for yourself," my twin told me as he handed me the glove he had just removed from his hand which now had a glossy look to it. I wondered what that funny substance was until I checked the glove he passed me.

There was a clear substance clinging to the inside of the glove. Upon further inspection, I finally deduced what it was.

"Vaseline?" I asked while barely holding in my chuckle. "Who would have done this?" I added.

"Who the fuck do you think, that prick Santos. He's pranking 'the new guy'," Clint answered with a growl.

That did it, I could no longer hold in my glee. I fell to my knees in a fit of laughter which ended with me rolling on the floor clutching at my stomach in my mirth.

"Yuck it up asshole," Clint said as he glared down at my still shaking form. "Santos is not the only one who can pull off a stellar prank. Keep it up and you will be the victim of my most merciless one yet; brother or not!"

That put an end to my chortles, I had no doubt that my twin's threat was one hundred percent true. Plus I had seen some of his pranks and I was terrified of being on the receiving end of one. At times Clint scared the shit out of me.

"You're sure it was him?" I asked my brother.

"Of course, who else would have the balls to try this stunt?"

"So what are we gonna do about it?"

The answering glint in Clint's eyes was menacing, not to mention evil as hell.

"His action tonight deserves an immediate retaliation," he smirked back at me.

I grinned back saying, "Then let's head up to my apartment and start planning a _double trouble_ prank worthy of us."

Payback planning agreed upon, we started for the double glass doors to the gym; Clint tossing the ruined gloves in the trash can by the doors.

When we entered my apartment, Clint headed to the sofa in the living room while I grabbed us a couple of beers from the fridge.

I passed Clint one of the beers before sitting down on the opposite end of the couch turning slightly to face him. My brother took a long pull from his beer before speaking.

"That little shit, we need something really good to teach him a lesson about trying to prank the master."

"I agree, but what do we do?" I wondered aloud.

Clint then began to tell me his idea. Step by step he spelled out his plan to make Les pay. I had to agree, his ultimate prank would be a hit among the guys, and it would finally put Santos in his place and maybe put an end to his pranking, once and for all.

Then again, nah … Santos would never learn! ################


	10. Training To Do Skip Tracing

**Clint POV**

I woke up ten seconds before my alarm clock started beeping. Rolling over and out of bed, I was ready to face the day. Today was another 'training' day, wonder what the core team had planned for me. _Only one way to find out,_ I thought to myself as I drug my heels toward the shower.

Ten minutes later, I was showered, dressed, and ready to hit the gym for a needed morning workout. I grabbed a granola bar for breakfast on my way out my apartment door. I walked next door to my brother Jase's apartment and pounded on the door, he should be up and ready by now.

He jerked the door open after thirty seconds of my pounding with a grouchy look on his face, funnily enough it matched mine exactly. We were both bears before we had our morning coffee. He voiced his complaints to me grumpily.

"Must you be such a pain in the ass this early? You know what, never mind … don't answer that. Coffee?"

I grunted my approval, then he locked up before we went up to the break room on the fifth floor in search of our caffeine fix.

The break room was gratefully quiet, which meant we would not encounter any of the other guys; and subsequently bite their heads off, unintentionally of course.

We both made sure to drink down at least our first full cup before attempting to converse with each other again. Once we had that initial dose of java goodness in our system, only then did I speak to Jase once more.

"Better?" I inquired.

"Much," he responded around heavy sigh of contentment.

"So, ready to face the day now?"

"Absolutely, let's go. My muscles are eager to be stretched," he grinned.

I nodded my agreement, then we finished up the last of our second cups of coffee, placing the dirty mugs in the sink on our way back out the door.

When we reached the gym, it was understandably active. This was the standard workout time for most of the guys, so it was quite busy.

"Spot me while I do some presses?" I asked Jase.

"Sure. Did you get some new gloves?" He responded while trying unsuccessfully to control his snickering.

"Screw you Jase! I'm still gonna get that prick back for that little stunt. Not to mention the unwanted hair removal from last week," I grumbled, then informed my brother of my change of plans. "Now I want to spar, and you little brother just volunteered."

For the next twenty minutes or so we basically tried to kick each others' ass, meanwhile drawing quite the crowd of spectators. Some of them brave enough to do a running commentary. My favorite one, I still don't know who uttered it, was, "That has got to be the weirdest thing I have ever seen. It's like watching two Ram's go at it, but there's no mirror. I keep looking out for glass to come flying out of the ring towards us."

We pelted each other with fists and feet for another five minutes or so, before calling it quits. I ended up with a sore jaw and bruised hip, while Jase left the ring with a busted lip and an aching back due to my endless kidney shots; told you I was a sneaky little shit.

After a fast shower, it was time to head upstairs for the morning meeting.

Filing into the conference room with the rest of the guys, Jase and I took our regular seats beside each other and waited for Tank to show up to start the meeting. The quiet hum of noise died down immediately when Tank entered the room a couple of minutes later.

"At ease," he began. "Let's get started." He passed out three files to everyone. One held the daily reports from the previous day, the next was our daily assignments; the last was a skip file. Since we knew he would cover the departmental reports first, we set aside the skip file.

Once all the departments had given their updates, Tank addressed the skip file we had been given. "Bradley Hoffman, wanted for embezzlement from his partners at his law firm. White collar, not known to be violent, didn't resist arrest either. Should be a cake walk. Santos and Vince, you two handle it. Barton, this will be your training for skip tracing, you're with them. Any questions?"

"Why were we given this file? Vinnie usually only gives us high bond or dangerous skips?" Vince astutely questioned.

"He's not a low bond. He stole over $4.8 million, our share of which is $1.3," Tank informed everyone, then added. "Anything else?"

He received negative responses all around, so after a terse, "Dismissed", we all went our separate ways.

"Hang on Barton," Les started. "Before we actually go after Hoffman we have to do a little research. Vince and I will walk you through the search programs and together we'll decide when the best time is to go after him."

"Okay," I agreed.

Les led us to his office where his computer was already booted up and waiting for us. Vince and I stood on each side, and slightly behind him once he took a seat in his executive style leather desk chair.

"This is our basic search program," Les began to teach. "It's more sophisticated than your average search engine, meaning we will get hits for several types of information; anything from work history, credit ratings, criminal backgrounds, property holdings, DMV records, and even all online activity, including social media networks. All you have to do is type the person's name in," he typed in our skips name at this point. "Then the information starts to pour in."

It took several minutes but by the end of our search we had over four pages of data on the skip. We took a few more minutes to look all of it over and discuss our options.

From his credit card activity we could tell he had no regular bar or club charges. The only habitual charges going to his card were for groceries and gas, both once a week. So we had nothing to go on from that angle.

We were just about to dig into the info again when Les' desk phone rang. "Yeah. Yes we are. Okay put her through Binkie," he spoke into the receiver before pressing the speaker button and cradling the handset. Then he resumed talking. "This is Lester Santos, head of the skip department. How can I help you?"

"Yes, hello. My name is Amber. Are you the ones looking for Brad Hoffman?" A timid female voice came from the other end of the line.

"Yes we are, why do you ask?" Les replied.

"Well he's been hiding out at a buddy of his place over on Crestview Drive, 1088 to be exact. I know he'll be there later this evening, they're planning a poker game tonight," she finished.

"Is that correct? And why are you so willing to help us ma'am?"

"Of course it's true," she huffed out. "I know it is. You see I used to be his mistress. He told me he was stealing all of that money from his partners so he could leave his wife and run away with me. But that was all a pack of lies and now I want him to pay for hurting me. So go get him gentlemen," she closed with a slight giggle.

Les gave her a heart felt "Thank you ma'am" before disconnecting the line.

"Well, now we know where he'll be this evening," Vince stated.

"Yea," Les laughed. "She was all to eager to help hand him over to us, wasn't she?"

"You know what they say about a woman scorned," I contributed.

I got grunts and nods of agreement in response, then Les sighed. "Let's get a plan of action ready to take him down."

So for the next hour, we did just that. By the time we were done, we were confident in our strategy. All we had to do now was wait a few more hours until the time we knew he would be at the residence.

 _ **Later that evening …**_

The three of us met in the garage a few hours later. Now that we had a plan in place, we were raring to go get this guy off of the streets. We had decided to go for a tamer look tonight, only carrying two weapons; our side arms in full sight and ankle weapons. We also opted to not wear Kevlar vests, seeing as we were after an embezzler and not someone known to be violent.

Vince looked stoic, like he was using some sort of yoga training to keep his excitement hidden; Les had no such qualms about letting his exuberance shine. Me on the other hand, I was a master at schooling my features so no one could tell what was going through my mind. It was essential in my line of work; spy remember.

A standard Rangeman SUV was the vehicle of choice with Vince at the helm. Les was buckled into the front passenger seat reminding Vince where to go. We were hoping that the party wasn't completely under way just yet; wanting to nab him with a minimum of witnesses who would no doubt turn out to be his allies. We could handle up to six easily, but didn't want the hassle of extra paperwork if someone besides our skip ended up getting injured.

The house was quiet when we pulled up and parked a few doors down the street. There were only two cars parked in the driveway, so it appeared that we had arrived early enough.

We exited the SUV and started making our way up the sidewalk towards the house. There was no noise coming from inside, further informing us that there could not be a full blown game started yet.

Les took the lead, standing directly in front of the door, with Vince and I flanking him on either side, but slightly behind him. He knocked loudly on the door while announcing, "Bond Enforcement, open up".

The door opened up partially several seconds later by a slightly stocky man who was obviously not our skip. "Yea, what do you want?"

"We need to speak to Bradley Hoffman," Les replied while making sure his size fifteen boot was blocking the door from closing.

"He ain't here. Come back later," the guy told us, as he tried to force the door closed around Les' boot.

"Hey Sam, who's at the door?" Our skip yelled from behind his buddy, then he appeared beside him, taking us in. "Who's this?" He asked.

"Bradley Hoffman?" Les spoke again, while shoving the door completely open so we all could enter. The skip nodded nervously, but I saw his eyes daring around the room looking for a way out.

"We represent you bail bondsman. You missed your court date. You need to come with us to the police station to get your court date rescheduled," Vince explained.

Les had escorted Hoffman's friend a few feet away to keep him occupied while we took care of the skip. Vince had grabbed the skips left hand and while I was reaching for my cuffs from my back I heard Les' shout of "Knife!" a split second before I felt a piercing burn in my side.

My knees buckled and my hand immediately went to my injured side clutching it. I looked up from my crouched position to watch the scene unfold before me.

Les quickly cuffed the friend before darting over to help Vince with the skip. Vince had already kicked the knife out of Hoffman's hand and had him securely cuffed by the time Les got to him. The skip was lying on his stomach on the floor cussing up a storm.

"Shut the fuck up," Les screamed just as he kicked the skip in his side, knocking the breath out of him. "That's for stabbing my friend asshole!"

At this point I decided it was just easier for me to lie down now. I felt sick. Vince was by my side in an instant. He reached down to pull my hand from my side. "Let me see it man." I noticed him grimace then put his phone up to his ear. "Yo, we need you here man. No it's Barton, skip stabbed him in the side. I don't know man, I can't tell."

"How's it look man?" Les asked Vince.

"I don't know, but I just got off the phone with Brown, he's on his way."

"I already called 911, they're on their way too," Les added.

"Oh fuck, Ram is gonna kill us!" Vince fretted, and that was the last thing I heard before the darkness took over.

 **Ram POV**

I was sitting at my desk working on scheduling a few of the guys for weapon proficiency testing when Bobby came running up. He paused beside me to catch his breath, then gasped out, "Clint's been stabbed. Come on."

"What..." was all I was able to squeak out before we were both running full tilt down the stairs to the garage and diving into his truck.

"I'll explain on the way," Bobby said as he started the vehicle. Then he flew out of the underground garage and onto the street. I kept quiet while fastening my seat belt. Only a true emergency would have Brown driving like this. I swallowed a lump in my throat, this couldn't be good.

"What is it man, you're scaring me," I was finally able to manage.

"The skip take down that Les, Vince, and Clint went on. The skip stabbed Clint. That's all I know so far, Vince said he couldn't tell how bad it was."

"Wait, that skip they went after was wanted for embezzlement. He wasn't known to be violent," my voice sounded worried, which was understandable.

"He wasn't, but you know not to assume anything when it comes to skips," Bobby finished as we pulled up to the skip's house.

There was already an ambulance there with lights flashing. I dashed out of the truck and through the open front door to see two EMTs leaning over my twin's prone form. One of the medics was holding a blood soaked gauze to Clint's side while the other was securing an IV into his hand.

Bobby rushed over to see if he could be of any help. I was glued to the spot. I couldn't make my feet move. Seeing my twin lying there bleeding, I was scared stiff. I just got him, I didn't want to lose him; not yet, not now, it's too soon.

Bobby and the other medics lifted Clint onto a rolling stretcher, then began moving him towards the door. I snapped out of my funk long enough to insist that I was riding with him. I heard Vince call out, "I'm sorry man."

I turned and glared at him, growling out, "Not now!"

I was not in the mood to hear their excuses, my brother was more important right now. So I climbed up into the back of the ambulance for the ride to the hospital. I reached for Clint's hand, the one without the IV, and gently held it for the entire ride to the ER.

We pulled up two fast minutes later and were scurrying through the sliding glass doors that led to the trauma exam rooms. This was where they forced me to separate from my brother. Needless to say, I wasn't happy about that. So I grumbled under my breath as I made my way to the waiting room.

Most of the guys were there waiting on me, looked like the Rangeman grape vine was on full alert today. I just held my hand up with a fierce look, warning them off. I wasn't ready to deal with anyone yet.

First I sat in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs for a few minutes, then I got restless and began to pace. The guys were giving me a wide berth, letting me have all the space I needed; guess the 'don't fuck with me' vibe I was throwing out was doing it's job.

Bobby, being the Rangeman medic, was allowed to stay back with Clint. I was relieved by the knowledge that he would make sure my twin got the best of care. When Bobby appeared from the other side of the double doors just minutes later, I wasted no time getting to get to his side.

"How is he? How bad is it? Is he going to be okay?" I peppered him with panicked questions.

"Calm down, he's going to fine. The knife missed any major organs. There was a small nick to his lower intestine, but they've taken him to surgery to repair that and close up the wound. He was down a pint and a half of blood, probably from an adrenaline rush. They've replenished that too. You gonna be alright?"

"Yea, how long is the surgery going to take? When will I be able to see him?"

"Less than an hour and he will be ready for visitors. Then another couple of hours and I'll get him released to my care; even though they wanted to keep him over night for observation." Bobby supplied.

"Good, I need some caffeine. I'm going to the cafeteria, I'll be back," I sighed out.

Bobby patted my shoulder on my way out, then turned to relay his story to the rest of our coworkers.

Forty five minutes later I was standing at my brother's bedside, gripping the railing waiting for him to wake up. "Come on ugly, open up those eyes. You've had enough pity for one day, time to get back to work."

"If I'm ugly, then you are too, asshole. You look just like me after all," Clint's voice was rough and scratchy.

Chuckling at his joke, I passed him a cup of water with a straw. "That may be, but you're still uglier than me," I teased back.

"Whatever bro. When am I getting sprung from here? I hate hospitals."

"Brown is working on the paperwork as we speak, so it shouldn't be but another hour or so," I let him know.

"Where are my clothes? I want to be ready."

"I got your duffle right here. Ella just dropped it off a few minutes ago," I told him as I handed him the bag.

While Clint was in the bathroom getting changed I thought to myself, _I hope tomorrow is better. I don't think I can take this kind of excitement every day._ Little did I know that with my brother, this was just the start of our adventures. ########################


	11. Male Bonding Over Girls, Girls, Girls

**Clint POV**

Today was going to be memorable, I could feel it. Well, maybe I should say tonight. Tonight was going to be unforgettable. It was finally Saturday, the last day of my first month of 'work' at Rangeman. But more importantly it was the night we had all planned to visit a strip club called "Curvez". Also tonight I would pay Les his prize of a hot blonde with big tits from our poker game a few weeks ago.

The cut to my side was two and a half weeks old now and nearly healed. Even if it wasn't, there was no way in hell I was going to let that slow me down tonight. I was primed and ready for action, all I had to do now was pour on the Barton charm and reel in my choice for the night.

I was sitting in the break room, lost in my thoughts while eating lunch; solo today because Jase was down in the gun range doing evaluations. My head snapped up when the gruff voice addressed me.

"Hey Barton, how's the side?" It was Tank.

"Better, according to Brown nearly back to one hundred percent."

"Glad to hear it. We want you back in the field as soon as possible. You still have training and _stuff_ to do." I noticed the emphasis he put on the word stuff. I knew he was asking if I had gotten anywhere with the mole investigation, just doing it on the sly. I tried to be just as subtle with my reply.

"Looking forward to getting back to _all_ of my duties. I don't feel like I have been very useful lately, all computer work that makes me feel _empty_."

He must have understood me because he nodded then spoke again.

"You ready for tonight? Who all is going?"

"I sure am. Besides me, Ram, Santos, and Brown, I don't really know who else is going. You're not coming?"

"No, unfortunately I have a pile of paperwork to catch up on. I will try to swing by later, that is if I make a significant dent in those fucking files," Tank informed me with an added tone of disgust.

"Hope to see you there then," I told him.

As soon as the words left my mouth, Junior skidded to a stop in the doorway and relayed the urgent message of an important client needing to speak with him immediately. Tank turned on his heel and left to calm the client.

Once again, I was left to my own devices … dangerous. In my case, very dangerous.

Well since I was finished with my meal, I guessed it was time to go looking for some form of entertainment; the real entertainment would be later this evening. I could hardly wait!

Who could I pester now that the work day was done? I still hadn't forgotten the ultimate double trouble prank that my brother and I were still hashing out the final details for, it was going to be epic. But right now I needed to find someone who could let me know who all would be joining us at the club later, but who? Just then the answer came strolling around the corner.

"Yo B-man," I shuddered as I added under my breath. _Damn, I'm starting to sound like them._

"Hey Clint, what's up?"

"Do you know who all is going with us tonight?"

"Let's see, we got us, Ram and Les, Woody, Manny, Vince, Cal, and Bones. As far as I know, that's it," he responded.

"I just talked to Tank. He said he would try to stop by, if he could make a dent in his pile of paperwork."

"I know. It seems he can't keep up with it lately. I think he could use an assistant to help him out. We could use him more in the field anyway."

"That's a great idea man. Why hasn't he tried it yet?"

"Not too many people willing to go through our rigorous background checks."

"I see your point, but it's still a good idea. There has to be someone, somewhere who is willing to do it," I suggested.

"We'll see," he paused to glance down at his watch. "Shit. I gotta go. I left Bones doing inventory solo, need to go check on him."

"See ya later," I uttered at his retreating back as he dashed off.

Now I had a partial list for tonight. All that was left to do was wait for the fun to begin.

 **Several hours later …**

Wrapped only in a towel, I stood in front of my closet and contemplated my wardrobe choice for the evening. It was a well known fact that I was always sharp dressed, even when in casual mode. I grabbed a dark purple button up shirt and tossed it onto the bed behind me.

Next I dropped the towel from around my hips before yanking a pair of black dress slacks out and bending slightly to start pulling them on.

"Dude that is way more of you than I ever wanted to see," I heard Jase's laughing voice coming from the door way.

"Teach you to waltz into my apartment unannounced," I teased back.

"Touche," he started. "I'll be in the living room waiting while you finish getting dressed."

"Whatever," I grunted in return.

Moments later I was dressed and ready to go, so I strutted out to the living room and found my brother kicked back on the sofa and drinking a bottle of water. _Make yourself at home,_ I thought. Even though I knew I would never be a smart ass like that to him; who in the hell am I trying to kid? Yes I would and at every chance I got too!

"Ready if you are," I said, making him jerk and spill some of the water down the front of his shirt in surprise. I smirked to myself at my small victory of sorts. The shirt would dry before we got to the club and he wouldn't melt from the contact.

"Damn bro you're sneaky, let's roll."

After locking up my apartment, we headed downstairs to the garage. The elevator doors slid open to reveal what sounded like what my mother would have called _'a hen party'_. There were several guys standing around laughing and cutting up, sharing stories obviously. It looked to me like everyone I heard was going to be joining us was there waiting for Jase and I.

"This everybody?" I asked after glancing around.

"Yea," Les began. "So let's get going. I'm ready to woo the ladies."

"You mean make them nauseous," Woody drawled with a chuckle and got the rest of us laughing with him.

"Alright, load up," Ram bellowed.

It only took two SUVs to hold all nine of us. Jase drove one, with me in the front passenger seat and Les and Bobby in the rear. Woody drove the other vehicle carrying the other four; Vince, Manny, Cal, and Bones. We followed Woody out of the garage and we were on our way.

The trip across town to _Curvez_ took roughly twenty minutes. We pulled onto the well lit blacktop lot and parked the vehicles in side by side slots.

This was going to be epic.

The guys wasted no time jumping out of the cars, excited as a bunch of teenage girls at a Bieber concert. We could hear the music coming from the windowless, brick, two story building as well as feel the thump of the bass flowing through our toned bodies. Even though we were all thinking about what awaited us inside the building, our training still had us scouring the perimeter.

I was amazed that they made it inside and to a table in the back without making us all look like idiots.

We took our seats after doing a quick scan of the dimly lit place, checking for exits and possible trouble spots.

It only took a couple of minutes for a scantily clad waitress to appear at our table. I was sure her tits were going to spill out of her barely there top, although I knew most of us wouldn't have minded; especially Les, the horn dog. I could see in his eyes the exact moment he decided to push his luck. _Oh hell,_ I thought to myself _, this is not going to end well._ Since I was seated in the chair farthest from him and she was standing directly in front of him, there was nothing I could do to stop the inevitable.

Not two seconds later, he made his idiotic move. With a cocky grin on his face he reached up and grabbed a handful of her left breast, fondling it for a brief second, then ending with a sharp pinching twist to her nipple. The whole action took roughly a second and a half.

With an appalled look on her face she answered his unwanted advance with a swift and sharp slap to his still smug looking face. The resulting red hand print she left on his cheek would not lose it's rosy glow for several minutes.

She recovered soon enough, taking a slow look at the rest of us at the table, then addressed all of us, understandably avoiding Les for the moment.

"What can I get for you sexy studs?" She cooed throatily.

One by one we gave her our drink orders. Woody and I had agreed to limit ourselves to two beers apiece since we were the DD's for the evening. She sashayed away, swinging her hips, to retrieve the first round.

A minute and a half later she returned and placed each of our drinks in front of us. With a flirty "Enjoy fellas," she parted to take care of other patrons.

Soon after she left, the ladies of the entertainment variety noticed our table full of potential income and started circling.

It was easy for me to pick out which one I wanted to approach about giving Les the dance I owed him. She fit his criteria perfectly, blonde with a huge rack. As soon as she stopped in front of me I pounced.

"Hey sugar, would you be interested in giving my friend over there a private lap dance? Just a dance, nothing more, you have my word."

"No problem. Which one?"

"Green shirt three chairs over," then I added. "How much?"

"Hundred," she answered. I pulled the bill out of my wallet and passed it to her.

"Yo Les," I shouted over towards him.

"Yeah?"

"Your prize my man, enjoy!" I replied with a grin. And with that the girl strode his way and began to turn up the heat in Les' personal space.

With my debt to him paid, I started the search for my own entertainment for the night. What was I in the mood for? Blonde? Brunette? Red head? No definitely not red, not feeling any of the blondes either, brunette it would be then.

I sat back and watched everyone having their fun. Only two of the guys were getting dances at the moment, Les and Manny. Manny was sitting next to me on my left and Jase was on my right.

Being so close to Manny's action, so to speak, it was rather easy to listen in on their conversation. Manny's most recent comment had caught my attention.

"My brother would love you chica."

"Where is he? I would love to take you both on," she practically purred in return.

"He's in Cuba so no can do, not tonight anyway."

"Maybe another time then," she said as she finished her dance then walked away.

That conversation being done, I resumed my search for a companion to take home later. As soon as I saw her I knew she was the one. Jet black hair hung just past her shoulders, she was about five foot eleven in her moderate four inch heels. Covering her abundance of curves was a skin tight mini skirt and what looked like a purple bandanna as her top for the night. I had always liked my women with meat on their bones, screw those skinny bitches. Damn she had it going on!

The modest, for a strip club anyway, attire she wore told me she wasn't a dancer, but a server, and she wasn't working our area. What to do? I made my way to the bar to order my last beer myself instead of using our waitress again. She made her way to the bar and I thought this was my chance to act while I was waiting for the bartender to come to me.

"Hey," I poured on every ounce of charm I could muster. "What's your name sweetheart?"

Five minutes later I knew her name, number, and that she would be getting off in two hours. My plans secured for the rest of the night, I picked up the half beer I had remaining and walked back to the guys.

When I arrived back at our table, I reclaimed my previous seat. By the looks of things around me, most of the guys were well on their way to total inebriation or at the very least, a killer hangover in the morning. Good thing that we all were either scheduled off or on duty later in the afternoon and evening shifts tomorrow.

Ram was the most sober of the others; Woody and I still had all of our wits about us since we were driving. Ram leaned toward me to ask me what was going on.

"What was that about?" He then nodded his head in the general direction of the bar.

"Plans for later little brother, that's all you need to know," I smirked as I responded.

"So I guess you won't be riding back to Rangeman with us?"

"I have to, dumb ass. Someone has to drive Les', Bobby's and your drunk carcasses home."

"I've only had four beers, I can handle Les and Bobby," Jase tried to convince me of his sobriety.

"Not taking any chances and that's final," I replied sternly.

"Just over a month and you already love me don't ya bro?" He asked while batting his eyes at me.

I just groaned and banged my head on the table at his goofy ass. My actions caused Vince to comment on the motion of the table and to inquire about our private conversation.

"Hey watch it," he slurred out. "You'll spill my drink. What are you two whispering about down there anyway?"

"None of your business ass-wipe," Jase countered. I decided it was time to have a little fun with these jokers.

"Hey!" I shouted, then whistled shrilly to get all of their attentions. "Which of you losers is getting lucky tonight?"

Les, of course, was the first to answer. "Lap dance girl and me are heading back to hers when she gets done at two."

It was after one already so he didn't have long to wait. Cal was next to answer.

"Got five on speed dial to choose from mate, no problems there."

"Senoritas look for me, so I got one waiting for my call and instructions," Manny bragged.

"I got off the phone ten minutes ago with a hot little nurse from Helen Fuld. She just texted me that's she's waiting outside for me," Bobby taunted as he stood to leave.

"After I drop Manny off my lady is waiting to ride this cowboy," Woody gloated.

"You know my plans already bro," Ram stated.

"I just noticed, Bones is missing. When did he leave?" I observed.

"He left with a dancer about an hour ago. Don't worry I made sure she was driving," Woody informed me.

"Well I guess we can call it a night then. My date gets off in forty-five minutes and I still have to take your drunk asses home, then get back here," I commented. "Alright, let's go."

With a minimal amount of grumbling the rest of the gang rose to their feet, three of them rather unsteadily. Woody kept his right hand on Manny's shoulder to make sure he got to his SUV safely. While Jase and I did the same for Cal and Vince. After everyone was buckled in snugly we started back to Haywood.

The ride to Rangeman was relatively quiet, except for the slight snores drifting up from the back seat Vince was producing.

Getting Cal and Vince settled into their apartments went smoothly. It was out of our hands now. We hurried back down to the garage. All I had to do now was drop Jase off at his woman's place. I still had plenty of time to make it back to the club before my girl got off.

I stopped in front of a quaint little house, where Jase told me his lady lived. He opened the door to get out. Before he could close is again I got his attention.

"Have fun and don't wait up little brother."

He gave me a stiff middle finger in return then slammed the truck door in my face. I laughed it off.

I had more important things on my mind. There was a gorgeous girl waiting for me across town and I had yet to get to the best part of my night. Grinning like a damn fool, I cupped my groin. It could hardly wait! ##############


	12. Training with Hector & Eavesdropping

**A/N: All conversations with Hector included are to be understood to be in Spanish. But to keep myself from having to use Google translate and therefore butcher the Spanish language, all will be in English, except a few well known words.**

 **Clint POV**

Today started out just like all the rest for the past two months, except that I was anxious, or should I say eager, to begin the last day of my so-called 'training'. This final part had me working with the meanest; according to everyone else; bastard in the building. On today's agenda was electronics training with Hector.

Disregarding all of the office gossip about how evil Hector could be, I made my way down to his domain on the second floor. Now don't get me wrong, I knew the kind of retributions that have fallen on those foolish enough to cross Hector. But I also knew that once you had a friend in Hec, that you had made a loyal friend for life.

Once I exited the stairwell, I cautiously knocked on the door jamb to the main computer server room and called out to him.

"Hector, mi amigo?"

His head popped out from the side of a bank of equipment as he addressed me, "Hola Clinton. Is it time for us to work together already?"

"Yes, I can't wait to get started. I know you have so much to show me."

His only answer was a cocky smirk and a quick nod of his head. He then wiped his hands on a rag from the table next to him. Why did it take my keen eye this long to notice his hands were so filthy? In my defense, there was an awful lot of stuff around me to take in.

Once he was done I spoke again. "So will we be working here or did you have something else in mind?"

"We will be working on your computer at your desk at first to cover the basics there, then coming back here so I can show you all of the camera and surveillance aspects of the business."

"Sounds good. Let's get started."

We climbed the three flights of stairs to the working area of the fifth floor. Hector sat down in my chair while I settled in the guest chair in my cubby space.

I watched as Hec turned on my computer, then we waited for it to boot up completely. After a couple of minutes it was ready to go. Hec started his instruction with the basics of searches, email, and inter office messaging, then he went into the more advanced stuff; like how to check the cameras in the building remotely from any computer. I had no doubt that this would prove to be handy with the task set before me.

As soon as he was done with that, he told me after lunch to go back to his floor for the remainder of my training. I quickly agreed. My stomach had been grumbling for the past half hour. It was now close to one o'clock.

So after a satisfying meal of Ella's ever delicious food, I bid farewell to my lunch companions. Les and Bobby were entertaining as always.

On my way back down to Hec's floor, I fired off a quick text to Jase to ask him if he wanted to meet up for dinner after work today. Immediately I received an affirmative reply from him stating that we would figure out where we would eat later.

As soon as I walked through the door and entered Hec's domain once again, I was hit by a blast of cold air on the right side of my face. Glancing up I saw the source. There was a vent in the corner of the room keeping cool air circulating the room. With all the computers and other electronic gadgets stored here I was not surprised. I had no doubt that if it wasn't pumping that air out, that this room would feel quite like Hades in the summer time.

I sighed longingly while looking up. That was one thing I missed. At SHIELD I spent more time in the vents than I did training new recruits. What could I say? I felt at home high up and the solitude and peace I found in the midst of the vent ducts kept me calm most times.

My thoughts were interrupted by a small piece of plastic smacking me in the middle of my forehead. It turned out to be a replacement computer key, the X key, which Hector followed up with a snarky, "Head in the game amigo, time to get back to work. We have a lot to cover."

"Ow," I grouched as I rubbed my head, then added, "yeah, whatever."

Hector just cocked his eyebrow at me before starting again, "We'll start with the cameras and equipment."

I cleared those thoughts out of my head and psyched myself up for the rest of Hector's brand of education. Anyway, I could ask him a few questions about it later, special security measures installed within the duct system and what not.

Rangeman used mostly one style of camera. Of course, it was the best money could buy with the best quality video and sound available.

While he was at it, Hec complimented me on the 'gay porn virus' from my earlier prank on Les. I tried to deny having anything to do with it, but Hec would not let me get away with trying to pull one over on him. I should have known better than to even try.

Hector was very thorough in his tutoring, leaving no aspect of his part of the job uncovered. He told me as much as he could, like he was trying to prep me to become his successor or something; even though I knew he was nowhere near leaving his post. He enjoyed it way too much.

He went into great detail explaining all of the various ways that the building was secured, even though according to him there was no motion detecting lasers or pressure sensitive alarms located anywhere in the building. I figured this was the perfect opportunity for me to do a little digging about the vent ducts, so I smoothly asked him about them.

"Nowhere in the building at all, not even the vent work for the air conditioning? I thought that with everything else being state of the art that you would have special precautions there."

"No, not really a need. We hardly ever run across an enemy smart enough to try to enter the building that way. Although we do have an elaborate set up on the roof access to the system, really sensitive pressure switches and temperature detection; but that's only on the roof."

"And if there are repairs needed, you call someone in or does Luis handle it?"

"Luis handles all of the repairs that are needed in the building. There's room in the vents for him to fit inside if he needs to."

"Oh, okay," I answered nonchalantly.

It seemed to have worked because Hector changed the subject and went back to teaching me about how to debug the computers if one of them picked up a virus. He didn't go into much detail here, like he had reason to believe that I already had superior knowledge on the subject of computer viruses. Well, he wasn't wrong.

Not long after this course, Hector dismissed me for the day. It looked like my Rangeman training was complete. Good thing too cause it was nearing 4 o'clock and I was getting antsy to get up high and see what I could learn about the vent duct systems in the building. Now, where would be a good place to climb up and investigate. It would have to be somewhere out of camera range and where it was unlikely for anyone to interrupt me. Where could I go to get into the vents while still keeping out of sight of the many cameras? The perfect place came immediately to mind.

I made my way up to the fifth floor to the bathroom near the work area. This would be the ideal spot. When I walked in, there was no one around, even better for me.

The vent was located almost in the corner of the room, on the wall next to last stall. It had hinges on the top and screws holding it to the wall on the side and bottom. I climbed up on the toilet, then reached up to open the vent cover. The only thing keeping me out of the crawl space was a few screws. Them taken care of, I lifted the cover and slid into the small space of the ducts.

It was a simple process to lay the vent cover back in place while leaving the screws out. It laid evenly in it's spot without the screws being needed to hold it down.

I breathed a sigh of relief and familiarity. This felt like home. I was so at ease here.

Knowing the layout of the building, I gingerly crawled toward the cubby area of the working fifth floor. There was someone there that I wanted to spy on for a bit. I just had a funny feeling in my gut about this guy. Something felt off about him.

The next vent I found was between my cubby and Cal's and right across the way from my target's. I settled in to listen.

It didn't take long for me to hear something suspicious. His cell phone rang and he answered it in Spanish. It was a good thing that I understood and spoke perfect Spanish. As I listened I learned that he was talking to his brother and that he had told his brother to give him two minutes and he would call him back, that he needed to find some place private for their conversation. He also revealed that he would be going to the bathroom for this privacy.

When he hung up his phone and started to stroll toward the bathroom, I stealthily followed.

I made it back by way of the duct work before he did, but just by a few seconds. I laid down on my stomach with my shoulders just below the vent opening, letting my head stay in the space, but hopefully out of sight. As he removed his phone from his pocket, I removed mine. I pulled up the audio-visual application on my phone and started recording, although I could only hear his side of the conversation.

"Sorry my brother too many ears around here. What did you want to talk about?"

"Si, no one suspects me."

"You want to move forward? You're here in town?! That's great."

"When do you want to do it?"

"Si, I can get the whole core team there. Which warehouse?"

"2545 Seneca Drive, si that one is under Rangeman protection," He laughed here. "Si, no not for much longer."

"When?"

"Okay, I'll have everyone there Tuesday evening. You just do your part. Till then, adios."

After he hung up, he was quick to vacate the room to get back to work, making it look like all he was doing was hitting the can for a piss break.

This left me alone so I was able to turn off the recording and climb back down out of the vent. I, of course, made sure to replace the vent cover so no one would be able to tell anything was up, namely me. I had just finished putting the last screw back in place when Vince walked in. I nodded to him and washed my hands before leaving the room. That was me, Clinton Francis Barton, master of acting innocent.

I placed my phone back in my pocket and left the bathroom, heading down to my fourth floor apartment. As I made my way I changed my mind, I ended up knocking on Jase's door. It was almost 6 o'clock so he should be done for the day and at home. He answered the door after about a minute.

"Hey bro, you done for the day?" He asked.

"Got done almost an hour ago. I've been busy. We need to talk."

"Sure, what about?"

"Not here. Let's go get some chow and we can talk about it there," I suggested.

"Okay, what kind of food you in the mood for?"

"Doesn't matter, just as long as it's somewhere that we can talk freely."

We went downstairs to the garage and took Jase's truck. He knew better than to let me drive after the fiasco on the day of Tank's training; the jerk!

He pulled into a small trailer like diner and by the looks of the place, none of our coworkers would dare eat here; too much grease and not enough twigs and bark, except maybe for Les, he was like Mikey, he'd eat anything.

We found an empty booth in the rear for even more privacy. After giving the sweet older waitress our order; I was partaking in one of those greasy burgers, thank you very much; we sat back to talk.

"So what's up?" Jase began.

"You remember the guy I told you about that I was having a gut feeling of weirdness about?"

"Yeah, why?"

I took my phone out and opened up the recording, "Just listen," I told Jase. Then I laid my phone on the table and started the recording for him. After it was done playing, Jase let his opinion be known.

"Shit! I knew there was something fishy about that asshole. So now what do we do about him?"

"Text the core team, they need to hear this," I stated. Jase took out his phone and started to follow my instruction.

While we waited for them to show up, our food was delivered and we ate mostly in silence. It took only ten minutes for the guys of the core team to arrive. They took seats around the table, then Tank spoke for the group.

"Alright Ram, what's so important that we all needed to be here and away from Rangeman?"

"This," my brother said as he started the recording up again. When it finished for the second time, Les was the first to speak.

" _Polla_ , did he actually think he could out smart us?" I had to agree with Les' assessment, he was a dick.

"So let me get this straight," Tank started. "This dumb ass thinks he can lure us all to this Rangeman protected warehouse and ambush us?"

"That seems to be his belief on the matter," I added.

"And he and his brother want to do this on Tuesday evening?" Hal inquired.

"Yeah, but since we're aware of their plans, we will be able to get the drop on them," Ram said.

"What are we going to do about it?" Bobby wondered aloud.

"We need a plan of action. Right Tank?" I put out there.

"Right," he agreed.

At this time the waitress came back by to check on us and asked the others if they wanted anything. The core team ordered sandwiches and we all got some coffee. This was going to be a long night. We sat there at that diner booth and planned out our revenge against the mole. He had no idea what he was up against! ###############################

 **A/N: For those of you who are more familiar with the JE fandom than Marvel, if the vent duct portion of this seems strange to you; just ask any Marvel fan and they'll tell you that Clint Barton always hangs out in the vents. If he ever disappears, all you need to do is look there and you'll find him! ;-) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jackie (Rain) BTW, thank you for reading and reviewing, you all make my work worth while. :-)**

 **P.S. Take a guess to see if you know who the mole is before I reveal him in the next chapter. ;)**


	13. The Mole

**Clint POV**

Today was our day off, Jase's and mine I mean. We talked last night about maybe having another competition in the gun range, but Jase vetoed that idea pretty quickly; saying that he didn't feel like getting his ass handed to him again by yours truly. The big Pussy.

So I made my way to his apartment to meet him for breakfast, hopefully we'll decide then what we are going to do today. Jase jerked his door open upon my pounding knock and glared at me. Oh yea, I had forgotten no banging, or hell, no speaking to him for that matter, before he has had his coffee. I thought I was bad drinking out of the carafe sometimes. I'm known among my _other_ co-workers for being a coffee whore myself.

We went up to the break room on the fifth floor and ate breakfast there; nothing better than some Ella chow first thing in the morning, who was I kidding, anytime. That was of course after Jase got his caffeine fix.

While we ate Ella's marvelous food, we decided to go to the beach and enjoy some of the nice late May weather, okay so we were really planning to people watch, more accurately scope out the bikini clad ladies. But since Jase was in a relationship and felt a little like he was doing something he shouldn't be doing, I texted the other person who was also off today; Les. He would definitely appreciate my idea and besides we could be each others wingmen. Within seconds of my text I received a reply from Les … _Hells yea! My kind of day off. Count me in!_

I sent my own response. _Meet us in the garage, thirty minutes. Need a convertible, so we're taking your Mustang._

Twenty-eight minutes later we exited the stairwell in the rear of the building and entered the private parking deck for personal vehicles of Rangeman employees. Les was already there, leaning on his cherry red 1966 Mustang convertible; playing a game on his phone, if his flying fingers were anything to go by. I had to admit, it was a sweet ride.

Les looked up from his phone to see us walking towards him, then cursed colorfully when he looked back at his phone's screen and learned the short diversion of his attention had cost him on the game he was playing. He grumbled a bit more then closed the app and shoved his phone into his pocket a bit more forcefully than I thought it deserved before finally speaking to us.

"Ready to go ogle the hotties?"

"That's Clint and your thing, I'm just here to bail you both out of jail when you get arrested for lewd conduct," Jase answered.

"Cool, we got bail money, game on!" I teased. Jase just rolled his eyes. But Les thought my comment deserved a wicked smirk with a fist bump.

I yelled "shot gun" as I jumped over the passenger door to slide into the soft leather seat. Jase copied my move into the rear with a comment of "asshat" in a sharp tone. Les just laughed and took his place behind the wheel. I thought I would pick on Les a little by saying, "So when you gonna let me behind the wheel of this beauty?"

"Never, ever, not even over my fucking dead body Barton!" Les snarked right back.

The ride to the beach was short, maybe this was because Les took the speed limit sign as a personal challenge and never let the speedometer fall below ninety miles per hour. I grinned to myself. I liked this guy more and more every day.

He finally pulled the car to a screeching halt on an asphalt parking lot near the shore line. I could smell the coconut scented sun tan lotion already.

"Let's go scope out the feminine scenery," Les sounded like a kid on Christmas morning.

Jase groaned as I agreed immediately while hopping out of the vehicle. A short time later we were making our way down the boardwalk, eyes ever moving to make sure we didn't miss anything curvy.

"Kinda slow, I've only seen a couple of chicks that I'd do," Les sighed.

"Yea, no eye candy out today," I groused back.

"Serves you two perverts right," Jase added.

"Fuck you Jase, anybody ever tell you, you're an asshole?" I fired back at him while Les flipped him off.

"You do every day since I met you brother dear," Jase answered silkily.

"Alright, let's bounce; no action here," Les suggested.

Jase and I agreed, so we headed back to the Mustang. We arrived back at Rangeman around lunch time; that's even with Les and his lead foot.

As soon as we hit the stairwell on our way to the fifth floor break room, we each received a text from Tank. _Special Op meeting in 10. Off site for lunch meeting. – T._

I figured he wanted to talk about what we were planning to do tonight for the warehouse situation. We met Tank, Bobby, and Hal ten minutes later in the garage. We all took a company SUV to a small diner across town, no talking between us until we reached our meeting destination.

But once we were seated at a back corner booth, we spoke freely with me starting the conversation.

"So what's the plan Tank?"

"I don't know what he has up his sleeve yet as how to get us all there. We should be prepared for anything though. He's a sneaky bastard."

"Damn straight. He ain't gonna get to us though. We're onto his little scheme now," Les said.

"He'll never get away with getting rid of us. Even whole countries have tried before and failed, so why does he think he stands a chance?" Bobby added with a sneer.

"I've been with you guys on missions before and watched you as a team take out small countries, so his plan is laughable," Hal chuckled to prove his point.

"He thinks it's a solid plan," Tank offered.

"Then he's delusional," Jase spoke for the first time. We all made sounds of agreement.

At this moment the waitress came up to take our lunch order. She must have been the owners granddaughter or something. She appeared to be in he mid twenties. She had short blond hair and cleavage that was making Les drool. It was no surprise when he started flirting and asked for her digits.

We all told her what we wanted, then she left to give our order to the cook. We talked a few minutes more about our plan of attack for tonight as we waited for our food to come. When it arrived, we ceased conversation in order to chow down.

The consumption of mass quantities of grease and fat, even Bobby disregarded the temple this time, took only twenty minutes or so. It kind of reminded me of feeding time at the circus from years ago. I shook those memories free before they could get maudlin with my adoptive brother Barney's brand of betrayal.

We talked some more about the plan after we finished eating. Tank ended the meeting by stating, "Most importantly I want Ram and Barton as snipers up high. Take either of the brothers out if it's at all possible."

"Sure thing boss," Jase agreed.

I nodded my ascent, making sure to tell Tank, "I got your sixes."

We wrapped up the meeting by agreeing to an alternate comm channel for tonight in case we needed it and Tank paid the tab, using his Rangeman credit card since this technically was a business meeting. Tank passed the receipt over to Les, which I thought was odd until the huge grin formed on his face. He turned the paper to me and I saw that the waitress, Sophie, had indeed scribbled her phone number on it with a personal note to him to call her soon for a hook up, lucky bastard!

The ride back to work; for Tank, Bobby, and Hal; was made in silence. We all had a lot to think about in preparation for tonight. Les, Jase, and I were scheduled off duty today, so I was mainly thinking about what kind of trouble we could get into in the few hours we had left to wait.

My train of thought stopped at the same time as the SUV arrived in Rangeman's under ground garage. Tank parked by the elevator, even though none of us used it. We got out of the truck and split up, half of us going back to work and the other half staying by the stairwell door until we decided which way to go.

Jase and I figured we'd pass the time with some movies until we were called up for action. I also rechecked my bow, along with giving it a last minute polish so it would be ready for duty too. In the middle of our third action film, we finally got the phone call we were waiting for; it was Tank and all he said was "it's time".

 **Mole POV**

Things were looking up lately and the phone call from my brother just sealed the deal. It was going down tonight, the plan was set. All I had to do now was wait for the signal.

I was partnering with Vince this evening and he couldn't stop talking about the mole in the building and what we all were going to do to him when we found out who he was. Little did he know that he was sitting right beside him. Well, at least that tells me that they all are none the wiser to my identity, even the so called infallible core team. They would soon learn, the dead way.

We were making our rounds around town checking on clients when the sign from Alejandro came through. The SUV's intercom system crackled to life with a message from Cal, who was on monitor duty.

"Vince, alarm going off in the warehouse district, GPS shows that you're the closest to it. Address 2545 Seneca. Acknowledge."

"Ten-four, we're on it."

 _Showtime_ , I thought to myself. We were less than a mile away so it took only a couple of minutes for us to reach the address. We pulled up in the abandoned parking lot, the whole place looked like a ghost town; even the lights scattered throughout the lot were dark. Either vandals or my brother's men were leaving nothing to chance. There was no sign of anyone even being here.

Vince and I slowly exited the SUV making sure to keep a sharp eye out.

"Don't look like anything is out of the ordinary to me," Vince spoke as he glanced around.

"Me either," I answered.

That's when the first shot pinged off of the front fender of our SUV. "Shit," Vince called out while ducking behind the driver's side door. I could hear him on his phone calling for back-up even over the shower of bullets landing around me. They wouldn't hit either of us, me never and Vince, not yet. We had to wait for the other guys of Rangeman to arrive. They were the true targets.

"Cal we need back-up. We're under heavy fire, sounds like semi autos, three of four of 'em. Shots fired, repeat, shots fired!"

"Copy. Sit tight man, every available Rangeman is on the way to your location."

The first two back-up vehicles rolled up two minutes later; Bobby and Les in one vehicle, Woody and Bones in the other. All four of them settled in beside us since the shots had ceases for the moment.

"What we got?" Bobby asked Vince.

"Sounded like at least three semi automatic hand guns. Most the shots sounded like they came from the building."

"Let's wait for the rest of the guys to get here, then we'll go inside and check it out," Les suggested.

"I think that's what they're waiting for," Woody drawled.

"You're probably right," Vince replied. "So we better wait and get all the help necessary before diving into the action."

Within the next five minutes the whole core team had arrived on scene and what looked like half of the building. I was starting to get a little scared. How many men did Alejandro say he was bringing?

Before entering the building Tank called us together for a short planning session. As it turned out, he was just handing out pairings and assignments.

"Vince, you and your partner are with me and Hal. We'll be sneaking in from the east side of the building; Junior, Binkie cover us. Bobby, you and Les take the west side. Woody and Zero will cover you. Cal is back at HQ and Hector is in the control van around the corner watching everything. Comm check?"

Everyone answered in the affirmative, so we started inching our way forward toward the side door. Hector took this opportunity to remind them to keep their eyes open.

"Snipers hidden in the upper corners, watch each others' backs."  
"We got our own double trouble eyes up high," Les snarked back.

Shit, I forgot about the twins. I hadn't even seen them arrive. Where would Tank hide them? Hopefully I could find a way to warn Alejandro.

When we got inside everything seemed quiet, but it almost seemed like the others from Rangeman were expecting a trap, especially the core team. They were signaling each other back and forth; too bad I didn't know what these signals meant. They were using stuff I hadn't seen before.

I watched as the others carefully sneaked around, scoping things out. Just as Tank and Hal hit the center of the room, Alejandro stepped out of the shadows and approached them, then began to speak.

"Well, well, if it isn't Tank Sherman and his band of merry marauders. I've been waiting a long time to get my hands on you all. It's just too bad that Manoso isn't here. I really wanted to put a bullet between his eyes."

"Who are you and why do you want to kill us?" Tank responded.

The remaining members of the core team joined Tank and Hal in front of my brother before he continued.

"My name is Alejandro Cortez."

"The head of the Cuban gun running cartel," Les supplied.

"That is correct Mr. Santos. And as for why I'm here, I told you, to see the four of you die. You have been a thorn in my side for ages. With you all gone, I can finally expand my business to cover the north eastern U.S., like it already is in Miami and the southern states."

"I don't think so," Tank growled out.

Alejandro laughed at him as he pulled a gun from his back and raised it. The answering clicks that sounded from all around the room, both Rangeman and Cortez were deafening.

Through the silence there was a soft whooshing noise followed by a gun shot. I looked over to the area it came from and saw one of the Cortez gang wincing in pain with an arrow through his hand, his gun lying on the floor beside him. An arrow, what the hell?

Alejandro took that moment to make his escape back into the shadows, calling out as he fled, "It will be more fun to hunt you down individually like the animals you are."

The rest of the Cortez crew took that as their signal to scatter like cockroaches in the night. All hell broke loose, but we stuck together two by two so we could watch out for each other.

We all took cover behind whatever we could find to hide ourselves, crates, pillars, machinery, and the dusty flotsam scattered around the room; and opened fire. The sound of gunfire and the resulting smoke soon started drifting through the dimly lit area.

With the battle in full blown war mode, I glanced to Vince on my left and noticed he was returning fire from across the way and not really paying attention to me. _This is my chance,_ I thought to myself as I raised my gun hand to take aim at him. Before I could fire off my shot, a bullet pinged into the wall an inch from my head. _Fucking snipers,_ I cursed silently.

Shortly after I heard through my comm unit, "Core team and snipers alternate comm channel," from Hector.

 **Hal POV**

I was glad that Tank had made sure Hector knew about our alternate comm channel, since he was in charge of communications, it made sense. Hector's voice came through my ear as soon as I switched frequencies.

"That son of a bitch just tried to take a shot at Vince."

"I know Hec, who do you think shot at his head?" Ram replied.

"Did you all know it was him, the mole?" Hector asked.

"Si Hector, we just figured it out today," Clint responded.

"So what do we do now?" I rumbled.

"We get back in there and kick his and his brother's asses!" Tank boomed.

"Looks like he and Vince got separated," Hector supplied.

"Good," Bobby started. "That will keep Vince out of the line of fire."

"Alright, let's get back in there. I'm itching for a fight," Les grumbled.

With that conversation over, we switched back to the normal comm channel so we could keep in touch with the rest of the guys, always careful not to give away that we knew anything about who the mole was.

Les must have really meant what he said because he started taking down members of Cortez's gang left and right. This was when I heard the first grunt of pain and curse in my ear from one of our guys.

"Shit, I'm hit!" That sounded like Junior.

"I'm on it," I heard Bobby say. Junior was in good hands, so I went back to the battle.

I had taken out two or three enemies when I spotted the head of their gang, Alejandro, out of the corner of my eye. He was damn sneaky at hiding, but I was on to him now. I slowly and carefully kept him in my sights and followed.

He turned a corner and paused to take aim at something. I looked over and noticed it was Tank, who was crouched down behind a piece of machinery and heavily into his own gun battle with one of Cortez's men.

I didn't hesitate. I raised my gun, took aim and fired. It hit dead center of his chest, knocking him back and off of his feet. A piercing animal like screech came from my right, the mole. His scream caught Vince's attention and he raced toward the mole, barreling into him and knocking his gun from his hands.

I watched as the two rolled around on the filthy floor wrestling like a couple of WWE champs with fists and feet flying. Vince was going to be bruised tomorrow. Then I watched as the mole flew to his feet and pulled something from his pocket, a smoke bomb. He pulled the pin and dropped it to the floor. A thick fog of smoke immediately blocked my view and most certainly Vince's.

The comm unit in my ear crackled to life as Hector spoke, "He's right in front of you Vince, knock that mother fucker out!"

Vince growled in fury and the sound of flesh meeting flesh filled the air, then a solid thump on the floor as I assume the mole fell.

When the smoke cleared, Vince had indeed knocked the mole out and was busy cuffing his hands and feet; and not too gently either. The grin on my face was huge, good, he deserved a bit of pain. He would be getting a lot more when we got his ass back to Rangeman and into one of the basement interrogation rooms. There would be hell to pay for his betrayal of our trust.

The battle died down soon after the two Cortez brothers were defeated, one dead and one who would soon wish to be. We started making plans for clean up. Our 'sweeper' crew would take care of the numerous bodies, none of them wearing Rangeman black; and only two with injuries, both flesh wounds. Junior and Binkie had both taken bullets, Binkie's was a through and through to his left shoulder and Junior's was a decent shot to his hip with no major vessels hit according to Bobby. All in all I would call that a good night.

Tank and Les grabbed the mole by his arms and dragged him to a waiting SUV, then shoved him unceremoniously into the rear seat where he was shackled down for the trip back to Rangeman, which didn't take long at all. We were all eager to see what the mole's story was and just why he thought he could get away with treason against Rangeman.

On the walk down the stairs to the basement, Woody spoke up for everyone who was not core or the twins.

"Why is he all trussed up and headed for interrogation? Is he the mole?"

"Yes he is," I answered smoothly. "And I for one can't wait to see what the hell he was thinking, assuming he could get away with some stupid shit like that."

Woody hummed in agreement while flexing his hands, balling them up into fists and releasing them; excited to get his punches in. We entered the first dungeon style interrogation room and I made my way forward to stand beside Bobby and Les, just to Tank's right.

Tank attached the cuffs from both wrist and feet to the metal chair in the center of the room. The occupant slumped forward a fraction, lowering his head marginally. He knew what was coming.

"What the hell were you thinking Ramos? Are you really that fucking stupid to think you could take us out?"

Manny lifted his head and glared at Tank. Looked like he wasn't going down without a fight, good, we had a fight for him if that's what he wanted.

"You tried to hold my family back. We were doing what was necessary," he fumed.

"So you serve with us, have our backs, earn our trust and then infiltrate our team for your sick attempt at revenge?" Les thundered with hatred in his tone.

Manny didn't reply, just sat there fuming and throwing daggers from his eyes at every man in the room. He remained silent until Hector stepped forward and pulled his favorite knife from the holster at his hip. He caressed the blade gently and only spoke two words in a deadly tone, "Speak polla".

That was enough to scare Manny into speech.

"How did you find out it was me. As far as I know, no one suspected me."

"Me," Clint began. "I over heard you phone call with your brother two days ago."

"That's not possible. I was alone. Were you in the bathroom too?"

"In a way," Clint added on. "You don't know who I am, do you?"

"Ram's twin brother, so what?"

"That's not all. My name is Clint Barton, also known as Hawkeye, agent of SHIELD. You have heard of SHIELD, haven't you?"

"Yea," Manny scoffed. "Them I've heard of."

There were several gasps from all around the room as the rest of the guys that weren't core team or Ram suddenly figured it out. A few murmurs and whispers drifted through the room.

"Enough!" Tank roared and the room immediately quietened down. He shifted his attention back to the man cuffed to the chair and addressed him again. "Are you going to tell us any more or shall we do this the hard way?"

"Do your worst," was all that Manny said as he stiffened his spine.

So we did our worst. Every single man in the building got his licks in. The worst, or best ones, depending on your point of view were Tank, Bobby, Hector, and Woody. Tank beat him senseless using only his gigantic fists. Bobby has a preference for needles, so that's what he used. Hector, of course, makes slices and dices an art form. And Woody, well my nuts are still partially hidden because of what he did. Let's just say that Manny's ass got intimately acquainted with Woody's favorite branding iron. So, yea, we did our worst.

 **Clint POV**

Damn that was fun. Not the first time I had to use physical force as my main form of persuasion. But damn, it had been a while. We all left the douche bag lying on the cold concrete floor of the interrogation room, moaning in pain and reeking of urine.

My job here was officially done, but I still had a few loose ends I wanted to tie up and one of them I had to talk to Jase about. We were on the way to our apartments to shower and clean up, so now was as good a time as any.

"Did you talk to Hector about helping us with 'Operation Make Les Crazy'?"

That was what we had officially titled the prank to end all pranks that I was going to pull on Les in a couple of days.

"Yea, he already started getting it all together on the electronic end."

"Good, I called in a favor from a coworker at SHIELD to be the fresh face we need. This is going to be epic, my best prank yet!"

"It's certainly going to be fun to watch," Jase remarked.

"Just fun? This is going to be fucking hilarious bro," I laughed as I rubbed my hands together in glee.

"Calm down asshat. Don't get your cart before the horse."

"Awww bro no," I sighed just as we reached our apartment doors. "Way to bring down my mood."

"Just go get your stinky ass cleaned up. You reek!"

"Pot, meet kettle," I joked as I unlocked my door and eased it open.

"See you in the morning Clint. Let me know if everything is going to be ready. Hector will have his part done and ready by the morning."

"Okay, cool. Night jerk," I couldn't resist one more shot before I quickly slipped in my apartment for the evening.

Today went well. We caught the mole, we had fun torturing him to find out his skewed reasoning for his betrayal and I got the best of my brother verbally, again. But tomorrow, if all went well with my plan, would prove to be even better. Nothing could make a day shine like getting the best of your prank opponent. Les, you were going to get it! ####################

A/N: So how many of you knew who the mole was? I've never seen Manny as a 'bad' guy before, so it was past time he went rogue. Thanks as always for reading. You all are the best! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rain (Jackie)


	14. The Prank and Epilogue

**Clint POV**

A couple of days had passed since we took care of the Rangeman mole. From what I heard they sent him by private jet down to Miami for Ranger to finish off. That would keep accusing fingers away from the guys here. It was no skin off of my nose, hell it wouldn't be the first time that I had gotten blood on my hands and I had no illusions to it being the last time. I knew I would have to kill again while under the umbrella of SHIELD. There were enough bad men, and women, out there that SHIELD'S job would never end.

But enough of that depressing shit, it was time to have some fun. The day for 'Operation Make Les Crazy' was upon us. I could hardly contain myself.

We, Jase and I, had everything all set up and ready to go with some deeply appreciated help from Hector. That man was a genius when it came to anything electronic. He filed all the electronic paperwork yesterday and I had talked Miranda from the financial department at SHIELD into playing her role, she no longer owed me a favor.

In actuality the fun began last night at a strip club downtown. This was a different one from the one we went to before. We laughed, hit on the dancers, smoked and drank. That last part was very important, I had to make sure Les got well past inebriated. He had to be flat out, passed out drunk. We succeeded.

At this very moment Les was still passed out in his apartment. I crawled around some in the duct work last night to set up a hidden camera in the vent cover in Les' bedroom shortly after he first passed out. According to the feed that Hec had set up for me, Les was starting to stir.

Jase was sitting beside me waiting for the shit to hit the fan, watching the video feed with a smile on his face. I picked up my phone from the table beside me and texted the other members of the core team, who wanted a ring side seat too. _Show time! -CB_

Hector had his own private monitor on the second floor and was recording the event for prosperity and for anyone else who wanted to see.

 **Les POV**

I woke up with a start, feeling like something just wasn't right. It didn't take long to figure out what it was. There was someone in the bed with me. I recognized the soft feel of it being a female, thank goodness for small favors. Glancing down, I noticed that at least I was wearing boxer shorts. But what the hell was going on, I usually don't let my one nighters stay until the morning.

A confused sigh left my mouth as I peeked my eyes open and looked around. I was in my bedroom at Rangeman, that much was obvious. My arms were wrapped around a petite brunette. She had a decent figure, wearing only one of my t-shirts and a pair of skimpy lace panties. Damn, I couldn't remember if I had tapped that or not, I certainly hoped so.

Obviously I was hung over. I did remember getting smashed at the club last night and hitting on a couple of the dancers, but this woman wasn't one of them; at least I didn't think so. I could be wrong because I was totally hammered last night. Just like my head felt like someone was pounding nails into it.

As I reached up to rub my aching head I spotted a glimmer of metal on my hand, my left hand. My eyes widened in horror at what I saw. There was a fucking gold band on my left ring finger, no fucking way!

I glanced down at my partner's hand and to be sure there was a matching gold band on her left ring finger. Holy shit, I got married last night.

Easing myself out of bed so as not to wake up my 'wife', I stumbled to the bathroom to take a leak. Upon my return to the bedroom I spied a piece of paper on the nightstand next to my bed. With closer inspection I realized it was a marriage certificate, a copy according to the note on the bottom. I had to get to the bottom of this so I decided to wake up my 'life partner'.

I gently shook her shoulder and called out, "Hey, wake up."

She gasped out loud at my first touch and sprang up to a sitting position while she looked around wildly. The she spoke with a scratchy voice.

"What? Where am I? Who are you?"

"You're in my bedroom. My name is Lester Santos and according to this, you're Mrs. Santos," I explained as I handed her the marriage license.

"Oh … I must have been really drunk last night, because I don't remember a thing," she responded.

"Obviously," I dead panned.

This was beginning to freak me out. My heart was racing, my brain was throbbing and my dick was twitching because her tits were jiggling in my shirt. Fuck, down boy!

This could not be happening. There had to be a mistake. I was Lester Santos, notorious ladies man. I would never get married.

All of a sudden another face popped into my head. That little shit, he had to be behind this. More intel was required, so I began my interrogation.

"Where do you work?" I asked my scantily clad roommate.

"Uh, the club," she stuttered out, while she glanced the other way.

"What's your stage name?" I continued.

"Misty Blue," she supplied.

"Where's Clint?" I said smoothly.

"Who?" She gulped, her eyes widening just slightly.

"Right here," I heard from the other side of my bedroom door. Seconds later he walked in with a shit eating grin spreading the entirety of his face.

"Barton, you asshole. I knew this was some of your shit! What the actual fuck?!" I screamed.

"Gotcha," he sneered back.

That's when I dove for him, not caring that my boxers were starting to fall down my hips. He dodged me easily, but I struck again and popped him right in his smug face. I smirked as I saw the blood trickle from his split lip. If Tank hadn't pulled us apart, I would still be trying to kick his ass.

"That's enough," Tank ordered.

"Please Tank, just give me two minutes with him," I begged.

"No, calm your ass down before I knock you out!" Tank bellowed.

I sighed. There was no way I could get my hands on him at the moment. There were too many men between us; Tank, Bobby, Ram and Hector all stood guard. Of course, they all were wearing large smiles, even Hector, and I had never seen that dude crack a smile; like ever!

"You have to admit, that shit was funny as hell," Bobby chuckled.

"Shut up Brown," I grouched.

"Alright, that's it, everybody back to what you were doing. Santos, you're due for monitor duty in thirty, so I suggest you get to the shower," Tank spoke in an exasperated tone.

All I could do was suck it up and follow his orders. I sent Barton a death glare before I spun on my heels and stomped to the bathroom still in a huff. But I did hear them still giggling like a bunch of girls as I left. Jackasses! I would have my revenge though, you could count on that.

 **Ram POV**

We were all still laughing as we exited Les' apartment and met in the hallway. Tank had to break up the party and our good time.

"Okay, don't you all have work to do. I know you're all on the schedule for today and I have a ton of paperwork to get done."

"Yes sir," we all answered.

Hector nodded and slipped away to his domain and Tank left for his office and the paperwork he so dreaded. Clint and I were set to be on duty in an hour so we went to go get breakfast first.

 _Two hours later …..._

I was sitting at my desk doing my report on the take down that Cal and I had just gotten back from when a shadow fell down on me from my right side. It was Clint and he was holding a manila file folder in his hand.

"Hey bro, what's up?" I asked while looking up from my paperwork.

He dropped the file down onto my desk on top of the paperwork I was doing, then he spoke. "This is what's up. I just got this intel from Coulson."

I opened the file and started to read. My eyes widened in alarm. There was a photo attached to the inside cover of the file. _What the hell?_ I thought to myself.

"Who's this?" I asked, scared of the answer that was coming.

"You know about the CIA and NRAG's programs called 'Treadstone' and 'Blackbriar', right?"

"Yea, why?" I gulped, I knew what was coming.

"They have another one called 'Outcome', well there's a newer one too, 'LARX', but that one isn't important. Right now Outcome is. That is Outcome Five, our brother!" #####################

A/N: Well as you can see, there WILL be a sequel, "And Aaron Makes Three". Hehehe. I hope you all liked this one. I sure enjoyed writing it.

Much love and thank you for reading and reviewing as always. ~~~ J 


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